A Southern lady
by Kitty18
Summary: This is a story where Scarlett grows up and forgets about Ashley, yet there's a price attached to that and she has to make a choice between love and freedom.


Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this story, or anything else pertaining to Gone With the Wind. I did not mean any copyright infringement.  
  
"In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much worse; the last is the real tragedy!" Dumby in "Lady Windermere's fan"  
  
Rhett never deviated from his smooth, imperturbable manners, even in their most intimate moments. But Scarlett never lost the old feeling that he was watching her covertly, knew that if she turned her head suddenly she would surprise in his eyes that speculative, waiting look, that look of almost terrible patience that she did not understand.  
  
Sometimes, he was a very comfortable person to live with, for all his unfortunate habit of not permitting anyone in his presence to act a lie, palm off a pretence or indulge in bombast. He listened to her talk of the store and the mills and the saloon, the convicts and the cost of feeding them and gave shrewd hard-headed advice. He had an untiring energy for the dancing and parties she loved and an unending supply of coarse stories with which he regaled on her on their infrequent evenings alone. She found that he would give her anything she desired, answer any question she asked as long as she was forthright, and deny her anything she attempted to gain by indirection, hints and feminine angling. He had a disconcerting habit of seeing through her and laughing rudely.  
  
Contemplating the suave indifference with which he generally treated her, Scarlett frequently wondered, why he had married her. Men married for love or a home and children or money, but she knew he had married her for none of these things. He certainly did not love her. He referred to her lovely, thoroughly modern house as an architectural horror and said he would rather live in a well-regulated hotel than a home. And he never once hinted about children as Charles and Frank had done. No he hadn't married her for any of the usual reasons men marry women. He had married her solely because he wanted her and couldn't get her any other way. He had wanted her, just as he wanted Belle Watling. This was not a pleasant thought. In fact, it was a bare-faced insult. But she shrugged it off as she had learned to shrug off all unpleasant facts. With the little help of a bit of brandy and wine now and then she could swallow almost any obstacle fate put in her way. They had made a bargain and she tried to tell herself that she was quite pleased with her side of the bargain. But one afternoon when she was consulting Dr. Meade about a digestive upset, she learned an unpleasant fact which she could not shrug off. It was with real hate in her eyes that she stormed into her bedroom at twilight and told Rhett that she was going to have a baby. He was lounging in a dressing gown in a cloud of smoke and his eyes went sharply to her face as she spoke. But he said nothing. He watched her in silence but there was a tenseness about his pose, as he waited for her next words, that was lost on her.  
  
Indignation and true despair had claimed her to the exclusion of all other thoughts.  
  
"You know I don't want any more children! I never wanted any at all. Every time things are going right with me I have to have a baby. Oh don't sit there and laugh! You don't want it either. Oh, Mother of God!"  
  
If he was waiting for her next words from her, these words were not the words he wanted. His face hardened slightly and his eyes became blank.  
  
"Well, why not give it to Miss Melly? Didn't you tell me she's so misguided as to want another baby?"  
  
"Oh, I could kill you! It's all your fault! Oh why did you do this to me? I told you I don't want to have children, I made that very clear on the day you asked me to marry you. And you could have done something about it, Mamie Bart told me all about it! You did that on purpose! Oh, you are even worse than Charles and Frank and I hate you, you are such a cad! Where's all the fun you promised to me before we got married?" and she carried on bitterly, "Really it's great fun to be confined to the house for the rest of my youth, forever caught in the vicious circle of pregnancy, birth and child-rearing. I wish I were dead!"  
  
Insensitive to anything but herself, she burst out in tears, feeling terribly disappointed and betrayed by her husband who looked at her with an expressionless face, hiding his emotions as usual. She couldn't stop the tears running down her face. How she hated to be pregnant. Those endless month of waiting and forced inactivity, the transformation of her body which suddenly didn't belong to her anymore. The excruciating pain of giving birth that inevitably came, followed by months of sleepless nights, where she was no more than a milk-cow to a greedy infant who suckled away all her energy like a miniature vampire. She cried with growing desperation. He watched her distress in silence, seemingly frozen in motion.  
  
"Oh, for God's sake, say something and don't watch me with these searching eyes. Your stare gives me a headache!"  
  
"You already said everything there is to say" he quietly answered, "I'm an egoistic, contemptible swine like all the other men in your life, with the exception of your precious Ashley. I forced a child on you and you hate me for it. Have I forgotten something?"  
  
"Leave Ashley out of this" she snapped, "at least he doesn't make promises he doesn't intend to keep. Unlike you he has never lied to me!"  
  
"What breach of promise do you refer to? I cannot remember that I made a promise to not have any children with you," he drawled, his voice having become unnaturally calm. It was true, he had never promised that. Nevertheless she felt disillusioned and miserable, her judgment no longer clouded by his gentle manipulations  
  
"You said.you said you were not like all the other men, not like Charles and Frank and.and Ashley" she broke off, not knowing how to go on further.  
  
"Ah" he softly said, "I think your little talk with Mamie Bart were not limited to the various contraception methods I failed to use. Didn't it also include my shortcomings as a lover? I'm sure Mamie has devoured every word you had to say about that matter. You must have had a very entertaining conversation."  
  
She watched him with dismay. Why did he always read her like a book? "Actually I didn't talk about your-er- shortcomings, but she somehow found out that I-er-that I don't- -I swear I didn't say a word about you!" she foolishly stammered with a rising feeling of shame and discomfort. Her conversation with Mamie hadn't been about Rhett at first. Actually Mamie had reveled in memories of long lost lovers and their splendid or not so splendid performances in bed. Scarlett had listened to her, blushed to the roots of her hair, growing hot and cold at the same time while Mamie described intimate things in ribald detail no lady-friend of hers had ever spoken of. God had obviously given secret pleasures to some women of which she remained ignorant. Her greatest mistake had been when she in an unguarded moment had carelessly told Mamie of her lack of experience, hoping to get some advice from her indiscreet friend. Having just received the news of her impending motherhood by Dr. Meade she had in vain tried to drown her aggravation in masses of alcohol. The result had been a tipsy mindless chatter on her side. Never would she drink one drop of alcohol again. Mamie had consoled her later by putting the blame entirely on Rhett. She seemed to have taken secret delight in that, hysterically giggling several times and then had blurted out in her usual coarse way:  
  
"Oh, who would have thought that of Rhett Butler, once the greatest whoremonger of Christendom! Oh, that's good, that's really good! Poor girl, he has obviously lost his old vigor. Well, we all lose our charms in the end. You should console yourself with a handsome and eager young lover. Twenty-five is the best age for them. Experience combined with the lewdness of youth." For a moment Mamie was lost in lustful reminiscences. "A woman like you! What a waste! He has associated with that Watling creature for far too long. She has spoiled him for decent women. I could tell you stories about that brazen hussy." and she shamelessly told tales of Belle's alleged debauchery and decadency that Scarlett refused to believe. Nobody in his right mind would do things like that. It wasn't possible. Those things simply didn't exist. Her husband was no saint, but she was sure he would never ever indulge himself in such disgusting manner. Not Rhett, who always was so smooth, controlled and self-possessed. She didn't want to know about a world where people behaved like that. How terribly naïve she had been and she desperately wished to return to the ivory-towered world of her youth which had had such grace and charm, populated only by nice and honorable men like Ashley Wilkes. Ashley was her only anchor in a doomed world, a world which had lost all it's magic. He would never seek pleasure in the arms of a dissolute and vulgar woman like Belle Watling. Beautiful, chaste Ashley, who had all her heart. Rhett and Ashley, so different and at the same time so strangely alike, one dark and sinister as the other fair and lovely yet both gave her only pain. She quickly dismissed the thought. Ashley didn't give her only pain or did he? She couldn't think about that now. Her pregnancy was enough to bear for the moment. She longed for something she hadn't even a name for. It wasn't just love, desire, power or money. If only she had a name for it, she was sure she could find it.  
  
Rhett continued to watch her in his usual aloof manner.  
  
"You have been drinking, haven't you? If you continue like that you won't have to worry about becoming a mother. You'll have a miscarriage"  
  
"Fiddle-de-dee, I drank like a fish when I was expecting Ella, and I didn't lose her," she said with a scowl. God's nightgown, what a rude thing to say. Rhett was right, she was still tipsy.  
  
"I nevertheless prefer that you stop drinking. If I see you in that state again, I'll lock you in."  
  
"Oh, you! Why don't you stop drinking yourself? You are hardly a role-model for abstinence!"  
  
He shrugged his shoulders. "My drinking is not of your concern. But yours is certainly mine, for you are carrying my child."  
  
She had made a silent promise to herself not to drink again, but his prohibition aroused her ire and defiance. She would drink whenever she liked.  
  
"Who do you think you are?" she cried out furiously.  
  
"Your husband, in case you have forgotten. This conversation is at an end, Mrs. Butler." He rose from his favorite armchair and left their bedroom without a further comment.  
  
Her gaze followed him to the door and she suddenly noticed how pale and unwell he looked. She couldn't remember if he had already looked like that before her melodramatic outburst. She suddenly remembered how nice and loving he was to her children and felt a twinge of guilt for the first time. Of course he wanted a baby. If he loved his stepchildren so unconditionally he surely craved a child of his own. He had once told her that he liked babies very much. It was somehow soothing that he wasn't all bad. Mamie's revelations had come as a shock to Scarlett. Not even the complete damage of her sheltered world had prepared her for something like that. She had to speak with Rhett, longing to hear from his lips that he had never abased himself in such a manner. He would tell her the truth for he was always honest to a fault. That was if she could bring herself to talk about things like that, Ellen's education was still too present in her mind.  
  
Scarlett sat in Mamie's boudoir and looked down to her engorged belly with a miserable expression in her face. "I'm already as blown up as a balloon and there are still three month ahead of me! No wonder he doesn't touch me anymore. Not that I mind very much, but it's hardly flattering."  
  
"Well, he didn't touch you from the day he knew that you were pregnant and you were a skinny little thing then. Some men think that pregnant women are holy ground and they are afraid of besmirching them with their carnal appetites. But perhaps it's only because he believes in the foolish nonsense the doctors keep telling you. In my opinion a nice little tumble in the bed sheets doesn't harm a woman in your condition and it's good for the nerves, much better than the wine you are drinking like a person dying of thirst in the desert. For heavens sake, put that glass down! I usually don't agree with your insolent husband, but he's right. You should stop that. Didn't I tell you of my poor sister Bertha? Her husband is a drunkard and they have two idiot children. And your Ella is a little nitwit, too! You don't want another one of that sort, do you?"  
  
"Ella isn't a nitwit! She's a bit slow and can't concentrate, but Frank wasn't very smart either. It runs in the family. And that's the first glass of wine I had in months! Rhett and Mammy watch me like hawks!"  
  
"Third, honey, you've had three glasses of that heavy Bordeaux. I'm not as good with numbers as you are, but I can count to ten. Why don't your enjoy your state while it lasts? You can eat whatever you like without having to worry about your figure. Everybody spoils and pampers you, there's nothing you have to take care of except the children you already have. And if you're husband were not such a bad sport, you could have a lot of fun with him, too!"  
  
Scarlett stared enviously at Mamie. She was such an optimistic person, always looking at the bright side of life. Mamie was the first woman of her acquaintance who wasn't intimidated by Scarlett's self-assurance and she couldn't have cared less of what other people thought of her. She had made it no secret that she had started as a revue-girl in New York who quickly found wealthy men to "protect" her and financed her career as an actress. For her, men were a constant source of amusement, especially their bodies. Mamie didn't have much interest in what went on in men's minds, something she had in common with Scarlett. They could have endless discussions about the shortcomings of the male sex. Scarlett often went into hoots of laughter at their blunt conversations. Mamie's astute and disrespectful observations about other people were too hilarious.  
  
Rhett had once been this funny, too, but mostly he spoiled her amusement by making her the target of his ridicule the very next moment. She remembered his biting comments when they had been to the theatre, telling her God wouldn't approve of that kind of entertainment. Always she had to be cautious in his presence. Why couldn't he be as uncomplicated as Mamie? She never had to be watchful around her. She remembered how much comfort Rhett had given her while she was still married to Frank and how funny he had been before the war. Why had he changed so much?  
  
"Mamie, why can't everyone be as uncomplicated as you are? Sometimes I think you are the only person I really understand and who really understands me. When I was a young belle, I thought an enigmatic man was as easily solved as a mathematical equation."  
  
"Well, basically most men are very simple. Feed their various carnal appetites, laugh about their crude jokes, don't spend too much of their money and above all don't expect them to understand you and you will get along with them very well!"  
  
"Oh, Rhett is not so simple. He's very generous with money and very thrifty with kindness. And he understands me very well, but I don't understand him. I don't understand him at all, Mamie. What does he want? I once thought he coveted my body, but after what you told me about men and how they express their carnal lust for a woman.I'm not sure anymore. He's the most complicated male equation I can think of!"  
  
Mamie laughed, "No wonder you don't know him and how could you possibly! Rhett wears a poker face all day. Whenever I meet him he has the same expression on his face, mocking black eyes and a slightly twisted mouth. I wonder if the man ever laughs, I mean heartily and with mirth like other people laugh, like you and I laugh. These are the three moods of the honorable Captain Butler"  
  
Mamie's handsome and pleasant face changed as quickly as the images of a magic lantern, the expression now became cynical and brooding in a perfect piece of mimicry. "This is Rhett Butler when he's in a good mood!" Mamie gravely said.  
  
Scarlett started to laugh. Her friend's acting was very persuasive. "You belong back on the stage!"  
  
Mamie went on with almost the same expression, only that her face was marginally more brooding. "This is Rhett Butler when he's in a bad mood!"  
  
Scarlett giggled frantically.  
  
And then suddenly Mamie's face was devoid of any emotion, her eyes and face blank. "This is Rhett Butler's mood when he's making love!"  
  
The giggle died in Scarlett's throat. It was so close to the truth that it hurt. Hurt terribly. She felt hot and salty tears welling up inside her eyes. Without volition they started to run down her face. Taken aback, Mamie watched her silent crying.  
  
"Damn, this was supposed to make you laugh, not cry! It's the baby I'm sure of that. I drowned in my own tears while I was expecting Meggie."  
  
She placed her hand over Scarlett's and quickly added one of her funny and raunchy anecdotes from her short and inglorious stage career.  
  
She retuned home that afternoon still dizzy from the unfamiliar Bordeaux, hoping desperately not to run into Rhett. Fortune was not on her side for he obviously heard her entrance and came to greet her. He made a sign to Pork, who had been about to take her coat. Pork understood at once and hastily retreated. Rhett didn't bow down to give her the usual kiss on the cheek. Instead he grabbed her waist rather ungently and drew her close, leisurely kissing her lips, something he hadn't done for what seemed an eternity.  
  
"Hmmm.French wine. I thought as much. Always the best for Mamie's intimate friends.have you forgotten what I told you four months ago?"  
  
"No, I haven't. I only took one sip out of Mamie's glass. Nothing to fret about!"  
  
"You shouldn't lie when the evidence against you is still on my tongue, Mrs. Butler. You won't go to that place again, is that understood? I have tolerated your friendship with that woman long enough. I won't have you keeping company with a whorehouse madam any longer."  
  
"Mamie isn't a whorehouse madam! How dare you speak of my friends in that way!"  
  
"Oh, always so loyal to your friends, I'm deeply touched! Your taste in people is as hideous as your taste in interior decoration. I'll have to keep an eye on you."  
  
Scarlett didn't see Mamie for the next several months, being forced to retire into her house and remain secluded until her child was born. People criticized her for her appearing in public, just as they had done when she was expecting Ella. It was very clear that Rhett also disapproved of her behavior, especially the company she had had been seeking until recently. She counted the days and hours of her confinement and felt like a prisoner who had been convicted unjustly. When her labor finally began she was relieved. She knew the next hours would be atrocious, but the end was in sight. However she regretted that she didn't have the guts to replace Dr. Meade with the young, good-looking Yankee doctor whom Mamie recommended to her and who gave women chloroform against the pain. Even the queen of England approved of that medical progress, having been the recipient of that treatment several times herself. However news of that hadn't reached Dr. Meade who still thought childbearing should be painful due to his conviction that this was God's will according to the bible.  
  
When Dr. Meade laid the tiny, red-faced and wrinkled baby girl in the crook of her arm she absolutely felt nothing, except exhaustion and the overwhelming need for rest and sleep. Rhett's reaction to the newborn was much more enthusiastic. The look on his face as he took the little girl on his arm was almost ecstatic.  
  
"So that's what he looks like when his face lights up with emotion and tenderness," she thought, feeling a sharp pang of jealousy. For her he had only a short glance and a little, chaste peck on the forehead. She suspected the latter was merely for show.  
  
Almost three months later Scarlett left her house to visit Mamie, telling her of Rhett's disapprove of their comradeship because of her friend's indecent past. Rhett had repeatedly told her how hideous her taste in people was and Mamie especially was a thorn in his side.  
  
"Your husband is a bloody hypocrite!" she exclaimed. It was the first time Scarlett saw that poised woman furious. "Yes, I had a little whorehouse down in New Orleans and how do you think your precious spouse knows? The bigoted swine was one of my best customers! In fact he was notorious. He and his debauched gambling friends tried out every new girl in my house and I always had to think of something new and exciting to entertain them."  
  
Suddenly Scarlett had the same sickening feeling which she had had the first time Mamie mentioned Rhett's profligate career as a whoremonger. She tried to fight down the vivid images that rose in her mind at Mamie's words. How cheap and contemptible that was. The worst was that she was no more to him than those women. Just one of a hundred or perhaps more realistically one of a thousand. No wonder he had lost interest in her. Nobody could fascinate such a jaded rogue for long. The novelty of a fresh and unknown body was doomed to wear off very quickly. Hers a bit quicker than others for she had no expertise in bed like Mamie and all the other women of his acquaintance, which could have prolonged her novelty. The thought was more than disturbing. She had never seen herself as inadequate before. How she longed for a drink. Something substantial, not the light Rhine-wine Mamie had put on the table. She would never get drunk with that. Only strong alcohol would obliterate the unpleasant visions her restless mind had conjured up. She gulped the wine greedily and tried to avoid Mamie's puzzled and sympathetic expression.  
  
"Don't, honey, he's not worth it. I shouldn't have mentioned it, I'm sorry. But I was so angry. How I despise the double standard of society! If I were braver I would fight against it like the courageous Mrs. Woodhull"  
  
Scarlett didn't care for the Mrs. Woodhulls of this world, fighting the double standard was not on her agenda. She knew it was a man's world and that it would be a lost cause to struggle against the male establishment. One could only make the best of the situation and marry a wealthy man as she had done. This world, which was a source of continuous frustration to her, could only be mastered by foul means. If only she didn't feel so weak lately.  
  
Her mood was permanently subdued since Bonnie's birth. Physically she was her old self, but not mentally. She would burst out on tears over minor incidents. It was a huge effort to get up every day and fulfill her household duties and the new baby took what little energy remained. Always she felt exhausted for her sleep was light and often interrupted by Bonnie's hungry cries. Unlike her Rhett never woke up during the baby's loud wailing. He seemed to have the sleep of the dead. During daytime however he was so affectionate towards the child, his fascination with the little one was so obvious. Scarlett had known he would love his child, but was surprised to see the extent of this love. How humiliating it was to be envious of a drooling infant. From the moment his daughter was born, Rhett's conduct was puzzling to all observers and he upset many settled notions about himself, notions which both the town and Scarlett were loathe to surrender. Whoever would have thought that he of all people would be so shamelessly, so openly proud of his fatherhood? And the novelty of fatherhood did not wear off. This caused some secret envy among women whose husbands took their offspring for granted long before the children were christened. He buttonholed people on the street and related details of his child's miraculous progress without even prefacing his remarks with the hypocritical but polite: "I know everyone thinks their own children is smart but----"  
  
He thought his daughter marvelous, not to be compared with lesser brats, and he did not care who knew it. When the new nurse permitted the baby to suck a bit of fat pork, thereby bringing on the first attack of colic, Rhett's conduct sent seasoned fathers and mothers into gales of laughter. He hurriedly summoned Dr. Meade and two other doctors, and with difficulty he was restrained from beating the unfortunate nurse with his crop. The nurse was discharged, and thereafter followed a series of nurses who remained at the most, a week. None of them was good enough to satisfy the exacting requirements Rhett laid down.  
  
Scarlett, on the other hand couldn't see much in Bonnie. Her daughter was just like every other baby in the universe, a living, breathing and constantly hungry, greedy little creature who woke her mother repeatedly during the night knowing her merely as a source of food. Children were such egoists. Scarlett knew she simply wasn't made to be a mother. Why couldn't she be barren? She knew so many women who desperately wanted children, but were not able to conceive whereas she only had to look at her husband to get pregnant. Never would she understand God's strange sense of humor. However it seemed that this wasn't any longer a problem. Rhett hadn't touched her although Dr. Meade had signaled that everything was all right. In vain she kept a small supply of little sponges and a syringe in her night board. Tonight she would not prepare the vinegar lavage as she had done for the last several weeks. Rhett must have noticed the acid smell for some time, but did not say a word about it. She hated the vinegar and, she tried to convince herself, she could give up their marital embraces without any regret. If only Mamie hadn't told her so much about it all. She never could look at those cold and mechanical embraces the same way as before, especially not after having read that scandalous book Mamie gave her as a gift for Bonnie's birth.  
  
"This will cheer you up," Mamie said with a twinkle in her eyes as she handed Scarlett the small, paper wrapped package, "You are looking dreadfully sad. Don't open it in front of anyone, least of all in front of your husband!"  
  
When Scarlett discovered it was a book, she was very disappointed at first. But the title somehow enthralled her. "Fanny Hill, Memoirs of a Lady of Pleasure" It seemed to be a sort of a biography. And it had pictures in it, very naughty pictures to be precise. She couldn't help but devour Fanny's wicked adventures. God's nightgown, what a book! If all novels were like that she would gladly turn into a bookworm.  
  
***  
  
Lou had tried to lace her into her stays as tightly as the strings would pull, but her waistline couldn't be reduced to less than twenty inches. She still had twenty inches! That was truly devastating. She didn't like her body anymore. Somehow she still looked pregnant. And her breasts didn't look very firm either. Nursing three babies had taken its toll. What a wonderful body she used to have. No wonder Rhett didn't pay her compliments anymore. Not once in her recent memory had he said she looked beautiful. In the first weeks of their marriage he had been very attentive, though in a very mocking way with compliments that were always maddeningly ambiguous. But his husbandly "ardour" if one could call his behaviour so, had soon faded away. When had that happened? She tried to remember, but couldn't figure it out. Well, she thought defiantly, others weren't so neglectful. The men she met at Mamie's house looked deeply into her eyes and told her in whispering, confidante voices how lovely she was, and what an idiot her husband was to neglect her so. If a man preferred the company of his child to that of the most striking lady in town, he couldn't be helped. And their tone clearly indicated they wouldn't make the same mistake, if given a chance. She received a lot of invitations to private dinners from very attractive men, some considerably younger than Rhett, but nearly as rich. Perhaps one day she would accept one of those invitations. It would serve Rhett right. However at the moment she preferred the company of a good bottle of Bordeaux or a glass of absinthe.  
  
She had changed her habit of drinking alone and now drank with Mamie instead. The brandy that used to comfort her in the nights she had to spend with her late husband Frank was replaced by heavy red wines from Italy and France. She became quite an expert on wine. It was much more ladylike than her former, rather nasty habit of clandestinely drinking the brandy that she had stashed in her wardrobe or behind papers and ledgers in the office. Mamie also introduced her to absinthe, which she bought on her frequent trips to New Orleans. Scarlett suspected her friend still had that "little whorehouse" but didn't really care enough to ask about it.  
  
Scarlett had ended her extended term of abstinence from drink by hiring a wet nurse for Bonnie. What was the use in being rich if she could not make her life easier? Bonnie would miss nothing. All babies really cared for was nourishment and sleep. Rhett hadn't looked very pleased when she told him of her decision to stop nursing Bonnie herself. Damn, he wasn't the one with black circles under the eyes and constantly sore nipples. Men had no idea what it meant to be a mother.  
  
She liked the evenings she spent alone with Mamie, drinking herself to oblivion with absinthe. On this occasion she had already imbibed one bottle of Baron de Rothschild's superb and also excessively expensive wine, but she craved something stronger. The sight of the greenish milky liquid in the thick glass tumbler alone soothed her nerves. Tranquillity, blessed tranquillity was what she had missed all along. Never was she at peace, always moving, but going nowhere. How she loved the numbing effect the alcohol had on her mind. Her voice already slurred, she asked Mamie, "Tell me, do I look fat? Rhett hates fat woman! We used to be good friends and now we hardly talk with each other. He only scolds me, saying that a cat's a better mother than I am."  
  
"Of course you don't look fat! You look very womanly, actually better than before! Men might want to show off girls who are as thin as the Empress Elizabeth from Austria and celebrate them as beauties, but in their arms and beds they prefer a handful of soft flesh. Have you never noticed that expensive courtesans are always ample? Just look at Josie Mansfield. She's even fatter than me and she drives multi-millionaires like Jim Fisk crazy." She looked at Scarlett, her mouth pursed in sympathy, "so your dreadful husband is still on your mind? Honey, spouses are there to pay the bills, warm your bed and give you sweet, rosy children. That's all they are good for. I must know for I've had four of them, and when I look at number four I'm already inclined to take number five. Joe has become such a bore. All he can think about is his business and his damn horses. The only good thing that has come out of this match, clearly not made in heaven, is Meggie."  
  
"I'll go to New York then and get myself a multi-millionaire! My chances must be very high for I feel very ample at the moment" Scarlett said jestingly, "You love your children, don't you?" she added somewhat enviously.  
  
Mamie might be a debauched whorehouse madam involved in a lot of nefarious business schemes and with two divorces under her belt, but she was a good mother to each of her four children. "Of course I love them, honey. They are part of me. That's a woman's privilege, to be absolutely sure that her children belong to her. A man never knows. I just love to see them grow up, makes me feel young again. And children love you unconditionally. You can stink like a piece of garbage and look like an unmade bed, they will still adore their mother."  
  
"I wish I could love my children! What's wrong with me that I can't love them? Rhett is such an ass, but he even loves his stepchildren. And he simply adores Bonnie!"  
  
Mamie rolled her eyes "Rhett again! It seems you are obsessed with him! Didn't you tell me you have married him for his money alone and that you are in love with somebody else?"  
  
"But I am! I'll always love Ash.I mean I'll always love.my first love."  
  
"Ah, now the big secret is out! Ashley Wilkes it is!" Mamie chuckled. "Hell, he's a good-looking one. Just my type of guy. But he doesn't seem very lover-like to me. Not the one who will give you the lay of your life. I once was smitten with somebody like him, but unfortunately he preferred his own kind. Though later he married a very boyish-looking girl-"  
  
"What are you implying?" Scarlett fumed "Ashley would never.he's not a sadomite! He's a gentleman from head to toe!"  
  
"Sodomite, honey, it's called sodomite. And I could tell you stories of so- called gentleman, prim and proper they seemed, but rotten from inside they were-"  
  
"I don't want to hear another one of your depraved stories, I'm fed up with them!"  
  
"Hell, are you sensitive! I don't want to say that your precious love is a girl in pants, so don't fret with me. It's so easy to tease you, I simply couldn't resist. He only doesn't make a very manly impression, that's all I wanted to say. He couldn't be more different from your husband but you love them both. Funny, isn't it? But why not?" Mamie asked with a shrug and a merry smile, "each seems to have what the other lacks. Love them both if it makes you happy, that is if it really does make you happy, which I somehow doubt."  
  
"I don't love Rhett!"  
  
"Than you are in lust with him, that's nearly as bad!"  
  
"I'm not in lust with Rhett!"  
  
"Like hell" Mamie muttered under her breath  
  
"I'm not a dissolute whore like you are. I'm in lust with no one!"  
  
Mamie winced at her words and then turned beet red, "Better a dissolute whore who has a lot of fun in bed, than a lonely, sexually dissatisfied, frigid would-be lady who drowns her sorrows in alcohol just like any low- down drunkard!" she hissed back. Scarlet paled at her words.  
  
They stared at each other with barely suppressed fury and hurt. Each had insulted the other in the worst possible way. Mamie took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a moment and then whispered, "Why did you say that to me? I only wanted to help you. Are you always so cruel to people who try to support you? I know you are mad at Rhett, but I won't be your punching ball. I have never tolerated meanness from my husbands or my lovers and I won't tolerate it from my friends. But perhaps I'm not your friend at all."  
  
Scarlett was surprised and ashamed. It was true, Mamie was the only support she had these days. Apart from Melanie there had never been a woman outside her family who truly liked her. But with Melanie she could not talk about her worries. She would never understand Melanie's way of thinking for their characters were as different as the sun was from the moon. Mamie was the first person apart from Melanie who offered her friendship, though God knew why. They could talk freely about everything, even about business. What did that say about her, that the only real friend she ever had was a former courtesan and supposed owner of a brothel.  
  
"I'm sorry Mamie, I don't know what got into me. I'm slightly inebriated, but I know that's a very poor excuse for bad behaviour. Of course I'm your friend." And she meant it. If someone had told her in her Southern-belle days that at twenty-four her only comfort would be a middle-aged, white- trash woman with a disreputable past and several glasses of a dubious French liqueur, she would have declared him mad. She thought of Rhett again and how their ways departed more and more with each passing day.  
  
While Scarlett was forming the first friendship of her life with a woman who would never have been received by her mother, Rhett was trying to patch up matters with the old guard, charming his way into their hearts. He even attended church now. She and Rhett, her own husband, didn't move in the same circles any longer. With horror she watched his transformation into a Southern gentleman with all the implications attached to it. Now that he had freed her from the burden of a good reputation, he bothered to have his back. She thought of the life she would have to live at the side of a true Southern gentleman. No hilarious, bellyaching, anarchic talks like those with Mamie for her anymore. No admirers whispering amorous words in her ear for a Southern married lady had no beaux. And of course no business dealings, a Southern lady never dirtied her hands with coarse office work. No clandestine readings of vulgar and indecent literature, a Southern lady would rather die then to besmirch her pure mind with lustful thoughts. And Rhett wanted to condemn Bonnie to such a life, a life of utter boredom by marrying her off to an honourable gentleman one day, who would think a woman not fit enough to put two and two together, keeping her in blessed ignorance till her dying day. And who, as Mamie had revealed to her, would possibly keep company with whores, afraid of slaking his base instincts on his sacred wife. The thought that this would have been exactly her fate if she had married Ashley briefly crossed her mind and was dismissed quickly. She would think about that later. Right now she would have another drink. She reached for the bottle again, but Mamie had already put the absinthe and the wine away. Only the carafe of water had been left on the table.  
  
Mamie obviously read Scarlett's mind for she said, "You've already had more than enough. I cannot believe you drank that whole bottle of wine, and two glasses of absinthe as well! We need some hot strong coffee to make you presentable again. Scarlet, you have to stop this! The next time you come, I won't put any alcohol on the table. You will drink me into ruin, not to mention your misfortunate inclination to self-destruction!"  
  
"Stop lec-tur-ing me-" Scarlett's undignified speech was interrupted by a hiccup "every-bo-dy is lect-lect-uring me."  
  
Despite the pints of black-as-the-death coffee Mamie had forced her to drink she still felt terribly drunk. With a little luck Rhett was still out. Lately he'd spent most of his evenings God-knows-where, probably at Belle's place but she was too drugged by the absinthe to care. Pork received her at the front door, his face a polite mask. How she got into her bed, she did not know. Rhett was already there but thankfully seemed to be in a deep sleep. She lay sleepless on the coverlet, staring at the ceiling which was swirling in a sickening motion. The bed rocked and rolled beneath her like a ship on an angry ocean. She had to stop, Mamie was right, this life was killing her. Tomorrow she would stop drinking.tomorrow she would change her life. It was the last coherent thought to pass through her clouded mind before she drifted into sleep.  
  
Much later she woke up, dying with thirst. She stumbled on her feet, still a bit dizzy, and tried to reach the pitcher of unused wash water. But she missed it, it was heavy and slipped from her unsteady hand. With a loud bang the porcelain cracked on the floor. A sleepy voice behind her drawled, "What the hell.Scarlett is that you?"  
  
"Yes" she said bitterly "only your little wife. I have smashed something. Don't bother. Go to sleep again!"  
  
"Smashed something?" he went on in a still sleepy, but clearly amused tone "What a familiar scenario! Reminds me of a lovely, fiery-tempered Irish girl whom I used to know before the war."  
  
"A girl long since forgotten, you might like to add. But never mind, she has also forgotten the rebellious, free-spirited blockade-runner she used to be fond of. Rumour has it, that he is a reformed rogue now and has become quite tame and boring, so she misses nothing, I guess!" God's nightgown, what was she rambling on like this?  
  
He had become very still. Only the sound of the striking of a matchstick interrupted the quietness, the room lighted by a gas lamp now. She turned round to face him. The expression on his face as he moved to kneel beside her was as unreadable as always but when he spoke his voice was soft, even gentle, "I'll help you with the broken pieces. Go to bed again." "No", she said awkwardly, "I can do it alone!"  
  
"Scarlett, don't be silly," he said, looking at her more closely in the dim light, "You've been drinking again, a lot. I've been meaning to tell you that you can stop your elaborate pretences and drink openly in my company. I don't give damn that you drink but I'd just as soon have you drink at home if you want to than go to that woman's house and drink yourself into a stupor."  
  
"No, I know you don't give a damn. But you should give a damn when I'm acting like this. We used to be friends once, but perhaps that friendship only existed in my imagination. Ah, but I forgot that I have a very limited imagination. Whatever," and she gave a little, hopeless shrug, "I'll go and fetch myself a glass of water now."  
  
She rose and moved toward the door, but he was quicker than she. As light on his feet as a panther, he sprang up and grabbed her arm. The grip of his hand was as firm as his voice was soft, "You are going nowhere. I'll go and fetch you a glass of water or better still, a whole basin full. You seem to need it. One of the maids can see to that mess on the floor tomorrow."  
  
He brought a carafe with water and handed her a freshly filled glass. She swallowed it greedily, and he refilled it. Sitting down on the corner of the bed, Scarlett gazed at the transparent liquid as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world.  
  
Rhett approached her and took the goblet out of her slightly trembling hand. When she finally looked into his eyes, her breath caught at the sight of an expression in them that she hadn't seen in them for a long time. She started to shiver, this time not because of the poisonous effect of the alcohol. He knelt before her and shoved the hem of her nightgown upwards, touching the bare skin of her legs and thighs. She hardly dared to move, mesmerized by his touch. His fingers moved up to places he had never stroked before. To her utmost surprise and dismay he suddenly stopped and withdrew his hands, pulling the nightgown over her knees.  
  
"Oh, no," she cried out without thinking, "Don't stop!"  
  
He looked up into her eyes with the familiar searching gaze that never failed to bother her.  
  
"What is he looking for?" she asked herself in dismay. "What does he want from me?"  
  
She watched him bracing himself, his face guarded once more. In a neutral, friendly tone he said, "It's better you go to bed now, you'll need your sleep."  
  
With scarcely hidden fury she snapped, "I'm not tired anymore. Why are you tormenting me like this?"  
  
He laughed incredulously, "Tormenting you? I?"  
  
That's what he always did, she thought, tormenting her, teasing her with his callousness. Rhett, who never deviated from his smooth, imperturbable manners, even in their most intimate moments as if they were attending court instead of sleeping together. Dimly she remembered how exciting she had found it in the beginning that even in his outbursts of passion, which were flavored sometimes with cruelty, sometimes irritating amusement, he seemed always to be holding himself under restraint, always riding his emotions with a curb bit. What a fool she had been. She had known nothing then, not about men, not about herself. But she was no longer an immature girl, she was a woman now. He would not treat her like this any longer.  
  
"You won't stop now," she demanded with a haughtiness she didn't really feel. "It's about time your fulfill your husbandly duty towards me. I also have rights! It's a reason for divorce if you refuse to bed me. You will no longer avoid me as if I were stricken with the plague! If you continue to behave like that I'll leave you, I swear I will!"  
  
The words had tumbled out of her mouth in a rush and she didn't know where they had come from. He watched her, obviously stunned to silence. Then a slow smile spread over his handsome, swarthy face. His black eyes, darker than ever, lit up with frank amusement, but there were no malice in them, no mockery for her. It was the first real smile she ever had seen on his face. He slightly shut his eyes when he laughed and it looked as if his whole face was glowing with merriment. He continued to chuckle with true mirth. His delight was infectious and she couldn't help but smile back at him, shy at first for she was still in shock over her own boldness but her coy smile soon turned into a sassy grin. They both laughed now, not at each other but together. They started kissing each other hungrily without grace and finesse like very young lovers. A strange lassitude swept over her and she willingly sank into the warm comfort of his embrace without thinking. Her body seemed to have a will of its own, claiming its natural right at last. They submitted to each other without restraint and with the innocence of pagans who enjoyed the pleasures of the night without feelings of guilt and shame. Much later as she drifted to sleep, she dimly remembered the sponges and the syringe that lay safely tucked away in her night board.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The next morning she woke up with a terrible headache and a feeling of impending doom. In the light of the new day she remembered what had happened in the recent night. The kisses and the laughter they had shared. Even the awkward moments when they clumsily fumbled at each other's nightclothes with sweaty and trembling hands had had a heart-breaking charm. And the moment when he finally claimed her body as his (or had it been the other way round? The thought alone made her smile despite herself.) it had felt like the very first time for her, entirely new and exciting. She did not regret all that, but cursed herself for her carelessness. Now she knew what all the fuss was about but instead of feeling happiness, she was afraid for more than one reason. The most outstanding fear plaguing her was that she didn't want to pay for their new- found intimacy with another child. As wonderful as the mutual discovery of marital passion was, it was not worth such a price. But worse than the thought of a new pregnancy was the nagging anxiety that maybe this all had only been a pleasant diversion for her husband who would soon return to his old mocking and cool ways. She knew she couldn't stand his coldness, not after such a tender night. In the sober light of the day his tenderness frightened her far more than his roughness ever had. Gentleness made her far more vulnerable to his charms. She always had been very susceptible to Rhett's animal magnetism but he never had made much use of his gift, as if he were unaware of it. It seemed as if he didn't know much of the appeal he held for her and this alone seemed strange, considering the eternally suave and self-confident surface he showed to the world and to her.  
  
She turned around to watch the cause of her sorrow lying soundly asleep beside her. He looked young and vulnerable in his sleep. His feathery lashes cast shadows on the highest edge of his tanned cheeks. She admired the aristocratic curve of his aquiline nose. He was breathtakingly beautiful, a sleeping Adonis.  
  
"They should carve him in marble and sell him. I would die a rich woman-if I weren't already rich."  
  
With a sigh she pressed her hands to her throbbing forehead. She decided to take a bath. A bath and she would feel fine again. If only her head didn't ache so. Gingerly she got up, afraid of waking up her husband. She couldn't face him now. She needed to rest alone and sort out the mess in her brain that felt as if filled with dust. For a moment she had to rest on the edge of the bed for she felt dizzy and sick. Finally she managed to get up and shuffled like an old woman to the servants' quarters to give orders for her bath.  
  
After Lou and Pork had prepared her bath and left the room she sank into the warm water with a blissful sigh. She closed her eyes but a little pucker remained on her brow as she lay in the bathtub until her skin began to shrink. Why had everything been so different last night? Had it only been her impetuous and somewhat ridiculous demand? That seemed highly improbable. But Rhett had been so tender and attentive, taking his time with her. He had been so very eager to please her. But with her innate honesty she admitted to herself that she had been very different to him, too. She hadn't embraced him with the haughty aloofness of a queen who granted a request of a lucky petitioner as had been her habit heretofore. Each of her husbands had been treated exactly that way, including Rhett. Perhaps she really hadn't been very inspiring. Charles and Frank had been such dumb clods, naturally they wouldn't take offence in her cold behavior. But Rhett was different. He was used to women who truly and unashamedly desired him or at least gave a very good imitation of passionate longing.  
  
When she went downstairs to have breakfast Rhett was already there, impeccably dressed and freshly shaven. He looked very handsome, the rough features of his face still softened up as they had been in his sleep. As the faint rustling of her skirts reached him, his eyes wandered up to her and lit up with amusement.  
  
"You look like you have a dreadful hangover, Mrs. Butler! But as a thoughtful husband I have prepared you my special hangover-medicine that I have had ample opportunity to test myself. You get the already improved version," and he handed her a glass filled with a not very trustworthy yellow-gray-looking liquid, and grinned broadly, "I can only advise you to drink it in one gulp!"  
  
She swallowed it without hesitation. The taste was infernal. She choked and rasped, "Mother of God, are you trying to poison me? What did you put in this, rat's tails and mouse teeth?"  
  
He chuckled lightly, "You don't want to know, darling!"  
  
She felt the overwhelming urge to throw up the nonexistent contents of her stomach and ran as if haunted by the hounds of hell to the bathroom. She reached the porcelain toilet just in time and knelt before it, holding her head over the white bowl and vomiting painfully. When the horrible retching finally stopped, she slumped to the floor, exhausted and sweaty, desperately gasping for air. She looked up at Rhett who had followed and now stood over her, observing her with sympathetic eyes.  
  
"It might not look like it at the moment, but you will soon feel better!"  
  
He was right. She could feel her dizziness and the fog that clouded her brain evaporate while her head felt as if it had been suddenly released from an iron grip.  
  
"I suppose, I should thank you. But seeing myself in such a humiliating position, I find it very hard to be grateful. Right now I want to send you to Halifax!" she said caught between laughter and utter embarrassment.  
  
He laughed aloud, "Do as you please, my pet! If it is of any consolation for you, I have found myself in exactly such a position a lot of times, especially in my youth."  
  
She was surprised to hear the high and mighty Mr. Butler admitting a weakness. They spend a surprisingly pleasant morning together. Rhett was in one of his rare indulgent moods, pouring out coffee for her and coaxing her into eating a hearty breakfast. While she ate her toast and her omelets he regaled her with stories of his past encounters with a hangover, some of his coarse stories not befitting her gentle ladylike ears. Scarlett returned his favor by telling the tale of a terribly drunken admirer who while making a very corny love declaration to her had fallen into Mamie's fishpond. They laughed a lot and Rhett's face expressed genuine amusement, not at all matching Mamie's hilarious parody of him.  
  
During the next weeks Rhett's bitter and acid barbs of the early days of their marriage were replaced by witty remarks, and their light-hearted bantering reminded Scarlett of their refreshing and exciting encounters during the war. It was as if they were living under some sort of unspoken truce. At night Rhett's pleasant mood turned into that of a passionate lover. Scarlett didn't dare do anything that might endanger that carefully established equilibrium between them, which only a whisper could destroy. The sponges and syringe scraped a bare living in her night board.  
  
When her monthly flow set in she cried with relief. Yet the danger of a new confinement still lingered in the air. Rhett was unaware of it or perhaps pretended not to notice. Scarlett was not surprised. Men were too selfish to care about their wife's health or their wishes in that matter. They had not the foggiest idea what it meant to be a woman.  
  
Although Scarlett had lately developed some maternal feelings for pretty and lively Bonnie, she was far from being an ideal mother. She had tried to spend some time with her children, in an attempt to gain their trust and affection, but utterly failed in that. She had neither the patience nor the imagination to win their little hearts. Truth be told, she found the company of children uninspiring and boring. There was no challenge in being a mother. Any simpleton could be a good mother. She yearned for something more, a challenge such as she found when she was negotiating a difficult business deal. The business was her world. She was good at meeting the demands of commerce. Her businesses thrived because of it and she thrived right along with them. She loved her children in her very own way, but like a father would love his children, more caring about their worldly welfare and education than about their minds and souls. If she were a man, everyone would think her a good and loyal father, and a very good husband at that. What a ludicrous thought. She smiled cheerfully in her amusement at such an idea.  
  
She smiled a lot lately. Her life has never been more perfect. She had a tender and attentive husband who was a passionate lover and a good companion, a thriving business and a true lady friend. Though she didn't see Mamie that often anymore they still very closely connected and never at a loss of what to say to each other. Sometimes she was afraid of how happy her life was. There was a superstitious fear in her mind that something so wonderful wasn't bound to last very long. She knew no woman who was that happy, not even Mamie who not restrained by conventions was free to pursue her business and her pleasure. But she was not loved like Scarlett was. Though Rhett had actually not said the words she felt loved and cherished. The way he looked at her when she returned from her business ventures made her weak in the knees with desire. Mamie had told her about the sexual pleasure a woman could feel but she had failed to tell Scarlett of the feeling of union that came along with it.  
  
When she mentioned it to Mamie her friend only laughed: "Sex and union! Sex drives more people apart then it brings them close together! You mix up carnal lust with love. What you feel for your husband is love and not lust. Poor girl, what a tender trap you got yourself caught in!"  
  
Scarlett only smiled at her friend's bitter retort. She sympathized with her friend. Joe was not a model husband and it was clear he didn't care much for his wife. She wished Mamie would find a lover who loved her as she deserved. But she knew her friend would only snort derisively if Scarlett told her so.  
  
But after her menstruation had been overdue for more than two weeks, there was no reason to smile anymore. To be with child again and Bonnie barely a year old was hardly a reason for exhilaration. At only twenty-five she was expecting her fourth child and there were still years and years of fertility ahead of her. She would get a dozen brats at least, she was sure of that.  
  
"Mamie, I think I'm pregnant again!" Scarlett said in a panicky voice the next time she visited her friend.  
  
"Well, that was a likely outcome of your second honeymoon, wasn't it? You should have used the sponges."  
  
"Actually it was my first real honeymoon. And I'm quite sure Rhett does not like sponges and vinegar and such stuff. He never touches me when I use them."  
  
Mamie smiled ironically, "Oh no, he wants to have all of you, body, mind and soul. He's the traditional possessive type. How can he be surer of a woman's infatuation with him if she willingly carries his babies? A dozen little love tokens to suit his male pride and assure his ownership of your person. He's not satisfied with a part of you, he wants it all. Besides he's a gentleman and those never care much about the likely outcome of their actions. If a gentleman like him impregnates a woman he hasn't to bear the consequences. In his world men ruin women without the slightest remorse knowing that their money enables them to buy a clear conscience."  
  
"Rhett isn't a gentleman. And what do you mean by buying a clear conscience with money? Are you saying that he is supporting a passel of illegitimate children?  
  
"No, gentlemen like him usually pay for abortions. A prostitute or a courtesan is ruined with a child. She will always prefer an abortion and men like him pay for exactly that. You shouldn't worry about it, it's common practice. Of course some do have illegitimate offspring. You should ask your husband about that ward in New Orleans he so often visits. The boy is the spitting image of your husband. And to clear all misunderstandings, your spouse is the perfect Southern gentleman and always was. He never belonged to us, to the underworld, to the ones who live outside the rules of polite society. He never was a bohemian at heart, he only liked to put on that attitude like a stage actor. We always knew it and he always knew it. That is the reason he has no real friends among us. In his heart and mind he's too aristocratic for us, despite all his lousy attempts at debauchery. A lot of gentlemen explore the boundaries of pleasure to later become a tame and proper member of upper-class society. He's so conventional that it's almost laughable!"  
  
Scarlett's thoughts were reeling. Rhett, the gentleman, paying for abortions, having an illegitimate child, being a proper member of society.  
  
"I always suspected him to be the father of that child in New Orleans. Somehow I have always been afraid to ask. I have a tendency to ignore unpleasant things, to shrug them off when I can," she muttered to herself in a rare moment of self-insight. Shrugging them off like the name her mother had called out before she died. Blissfully ignoring the fact that Ashley had never actually said that he loved her. Yes, she could ignore unwanted children just as easily as she could ignore so many other things, countless other things.  
  
"Or drown them in alcohol!" Mamie dryly added, "Perhaps you should learn to face unpleasant truths, especially when they stare you in the face!"  
  
Scarlett sighed and then smiled, "Not when it's so much easier to drown them into a nice glass of absinthe, I'm afraid. Mamie, you say Rhett doesn't belong to the underworld, but where do I belong? Surely I'm not a bohemian. But I don't think I'm a prim and proper Southern lady either. Rhett once said I cannot forsake all virtue to get it back when it's convenient for me. He was so right. As much as I would like to I can't revive all those virtues I cast off as an impediment to survival. And I don't think I want to. Being a Southern lady again would suffocate me. Southern ladies do not even play bridge, at least not for money. Did you know that? They go to church, they raise their children, they go to their knitting and sewing circles where they exchange insipid and ludicrous gossip that's not the least bit entertaining. Oh, I forgot the literary clubs. They read Bulwer-Lytton at those book circles. Bulwer-Lytton! I had to endure his moral lectures while I visited my relatives in Charleston. I've had enough Bulwer-Lytton to last a lifetime! I remember I fell asleep during an especially boring reading. Even Byron is considered to be too immoral for our pure ladylike minds! Those ladylike minds have seen grown- up men peeing in their pants and desperately crying for their mother while doctors amputated their legs. Oh God, Mamie, what hypocrisy it all is!"  
  
"Hypocrisy or not, something tells me, you will have to make your mind up and very soon."  
  
"What do you mean by that?"  
  
"You are pregnant again and your husband is determined to conquer back his reputation and place in society. He doesn't keep you company anymore when you visit our little entertainments. His position against us is adamant. I dare say he's a man to get what he wants. You are the mother of his children and he will remove you from us, and from me-eventually."  
  
"But I don't want to be removed from you. I choose my own friends!"  
  
"Not when the friend in question is a former member of the demimonde. Scarlett, we live in different worlds and only through a strange turn in fate have we met. Just like your husband, you don't really belong to us. We are divided by class and birth. America has a class system just like every other country and just as inflexible. And the South is inflexible to the extreme. Without being a clairvoyant I can make you a prediction: His first step in removing you from my and other hostile influences will be selling your mills! A thriving business woman is not what he wants now, mark my words. He wants a devoted mother and compliant wife. A man like him wants total commitment or nothing at all. The thought of an egalitarian partnership has surely never crossed his mind so don't even think about it! "  
  
Scarlett shuddered, "Sell my mills! Over my dead body! I could as soon sell one of my children! I love my work! What am I going to do with my days if I don't have it anymore? Embroider handkerchiefs? Arrange flowers? Observe the servants while they clean the silverware? I'm not a shrinking violet as Melanie is and I can't and don't want to pretend to be one! It's so unfair, a Southern lady is not allowed the smallest amount of pleasure and the slightest indiscretion can ruin her, whereas gentlemen debauch women and leave them alone afterwards. They drink. They gamble and risk their family fortunes for a stupid bet. They stab each other for minor insults and shoot wildly around in dangerous duels and nobody cares! Their reputation isn't ruined! When they are shrewd businessmen people praise them for their keen minds and industriousness. Why should I not be allowed to keep my mills? I kept my family alive with them! Those mills fed us all. Who is Rhett to forbid me to keep them? He shouldn't have lent me the money to buy them in the first place if he doesn't think it's proper for me to run them now! Besides which, he told me himself that a lady holds no appeal for him!"  
  
"When did he say that?" Mamie asked smoothly.  
  
"Well, actually a long time ago, but-"  
  
"So he simply changed his mind then because obviously it's a lady he wants now. Somebody who will cause him no shame, somebody he can show off and be proud of in the society of his choosing. And he cannot cause a sensation with a hard-headed businesswoman and hold his head up in such a society. No man, darling, wants such a woman. When he gave you the money for the mills, he tried to buy his way into your heart and didn't ask at the time whether is was proper or not for you to run them. The ends justify the means according to your husband's philosophy. Keep in mind that he has all the legal rights to sell your mills without your consent, your property is his property, but unfortunately it doesn't work the other way round, you have no say in his affairs. See it as it is and be prepared. He will think it's the best for you. A woman's place is at her home."  
  
"But I will be bored to death there! I cannot spend the whole day with only household and children. It's not in my nature!"  
  
"I doubt if your husband will understand that. He's the kind of man who only sees what he wants to see. There's no lack of money so why should you go out and work? He will see no sense in that. All the women he has met so far only wanted to have a good husband, children and no financial worries. Why should he think you are any different?"  
  
"But I am different! And he likes me because of that!"  
  
"Scarlett, you have to make a choice in this world. You can have a career or a husband and a family. You simply cannot have both. Either you have the fatherly and benevolent love of your husband who protects you and cares for all your needs or you have to care for yourself and be on your own. Either loving dependency or lonely independency. Sweet confinement opposed to the dangers of complete freedom. Which do you want?"  
  
Scarlett replied furiously: "I don't want to choose! I want to be independent and I want to be loved! Why can't I have both?"  
  
Mamie smiled at her passionate outburst, "Perhaps in a hundred years or so, a woman like you can have both. Or by living in the bohemian world as an actress or an opera singer who's married to an actor or a painter or a play writer, you can have both. Unfortunately you have chosen the wrong career, the wrong man and the wrong society."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Scarlett quickly forgot all about Mamie's unpleasant prophecy in the weeks that came. With the new baby coming and her newfound marital happiness she could overlook all that. Rhett was so nice to her it was unbelievable. He brought her flowers and presents and read Shakespeare's plays to her in the evenings. She liked the comedies much more than the dramas and so he indulged her by choosing those to read. He imitated the voices and accents so well that it was almost like watching the play on stage. Oh yes, life was pleasant these days if she refused to think of the future. But this changed when her pregnancy was so advanced that she was forced to stay at home again. Rhett went to the bank in the morning and came home in the late afternoon. During this time her forced inactivity was very hard to bear. She lived for the moments alone when she heard his key in the latch. Then her life would begin again.  
  
He greeted her with his usual warm smile and kissed her on the mouth, "What have you been doing all day, my pet?"  
  
"Nothing, I tried to embroider handkerchiefs for you but it was so tedious that I gave it up"  
  
He laughed, "You really don't have to do that. We can give them to a seamstress. But I see you are reading a book. What an extraordinary sight. Our little Shakespeare reading seems to have inspired you, I suppose."  
  
This wasn't the case. Mamie had just sent her another one of her disreputable novels. This time it was "Moll Flanders" by Daniel Defoe. It was so funny. Scarlett hadn't been able to put it down. She liked Moll. The woman was a bigamist and a criminal but she was also a survivor. And it was so soothing to read about a woman who had a much worse character than herself and was obviously a horrid mother to all her children. She simply neglected them and left them in the care of nurses and spouses. Mamie had said that Scarlett would undoubtedly like the ending but Scarlett was not sure about that. After all that Moll had done, morality demanded that she die a slow and torturous death and Scarlett had no interest in a sad ending for such a lively, likable character.  
  
Rhett went over to the table to read the title of the book, "Moll Flanders? This is one of Defoe's worst works. Robinson Crusoe is much better. Where did you get it? I hope you didn't buy it in the local bookshop? If the old cats find out that this is your evening reading they would shred you to pieces. I had hoped you would start to care for your reputation, for Bonnie's sake."  
  
"Rhett, does the book have a happy-ending? I don't want Moll to die. She's so hilarious. Of course I didn't buy it in the local bookshop. Mamie sent it to me."  
  
"So you are still in contact with Mamie. I had hoped you would have come to your senses by now. If you still associate with her, there's no way Atlanta will ever accept you."  
  
She smiled and pouted, "Oh, Rhett, but I'm so fond of her. She's so witty and always knows what I like. Does the book have a happy-ending or not?"  
  
"As far as I remember she marries that swindler who misled her in the beginning, the one who pretended to be rich."  
  
"The one she tried to mislead, too, acting like a rich widow! Ah, how wonderful, they are made for each other. I love happy endings!" She clapped her hands joyfully, smiled sweetly and peeped up to her husband through fluttering lashes, trying to distract Rhett from pursuing the conversation about Mamie. But as usual her feminine wiles didn't work with Rhett.  
  
"Scarlett, don't try to divert me. It won't work. I really don't want you to see her again. Please think of the damage for Bonnie, Wade and Ella. I'm sure you don't want them to grow up among white trash children."  
  
"But those that you call white trash children are much more entertaining company that the boring brats from Atlanta's society families. Wade liked Cecil Graham very much. He's so lively and charming. If you hadn't persuaded Wade that Cecil is no good company for him, they would still be friends."  
  
"Mamie's Cecil is a veritable plague, destruction follows perpetually at his feet. To call him 'lively' is really a euphemism."  
  
"I have not the foggiest idea what a euphemism is, but I could imagine him to be very much like you when you were the same age."  
  
Rhett laughed, "What better proof that he's no good company for Wade? But this is a serious issue. How can you be so casual about your children's playmates? Cecil Graham's father was a drifter and his mother is a tramp. How can you encourage a friendship between your son and a boy from such a family?"  
  
Because I wish Wade were a bit more like Cecil who I think had a good influence upon him. And because I really like his mother very much. But Scarlett said none of these things out loud. She knew Rhett would never understand her and probably nobody would. Suddenly she felt very alone.  
  
The months passed by and Scarlett gave birth to a little boy. The Yankee doctor was still out of question, Rhett had successfully talked out of her this. They named the baby after his father. Rhett had laughed incredulously when Scarlett said she wanted his name for the rosy and good- natured boy who already had an abundance of black hair and pitch-black eyes. But she felt that he was also truly flattered.  
  
This time she would nurse the boy herself the whole time it was necessary. Rhett had told her with a twinkle in his eyes that nursing prevented conceiving a child. And she didn't suffer as much as she had the last time when nursing Bonnie. Rhett jr. was such a cheerful baby she didn't even mind him waking her up trice a night for he always was ravenously hungry. All her children had been greedy, except Ella who still had no appetite and who was much too tiny for her age. Rhett was a model husband through her convalescence. He gave her a lavish present, a wonderful diamond necklace with matching earrings. When she asked him teasingly where she was going to wear this if she wasn't allowed to attend the carpetbagger's balls he only said:  
  
"There will be ample opportunity one day. Atlanta's society will eventually be back to its former glory!"  
  
Scarlett very much doubted this but she didn't contradict her husband. He was so adorably sweet to her she didn't want to destroy his illusions. She never would have thought her husband would harbor any illusions in his hard head but obviously he did.  
  
Oh, yes she was a happy woman, wasn't she? If only she didn't miss Mamie so. She hadn't seen her old friend for months except of some brief, coincidental encounters in shops when they had hardly exchanged a word. She hated herself for her cold behavior but she didn't know how to handle the situation. Unable to bring herself to openly end her friendship with Mamie, Scarlett simply tried to ignore her and all of her other old friends. Of course, she still had her mills though she hardly found time to do business herself. Her husband had silently taken over her commercial dealings while she expected baby Rhett jr. Apart from that life went on as usual until shortly after little Rhett's first birthday when Dr. Meade told her that she was with child again.  
  
Rhett was on a business trip, so she couldn't tell him and this was good for she wasn't happy at all. Oh, she loved Bonnie and adored Rhett jr. but how would she survive another confinement to the house? And working at the sawmills or at Frank's shop was undoubtedly out of question, now that she had patched up matters with the old guard again. Yes, Atlanta's most dreaded triumvirate, Mrs. Merriwether, Mrs. Meade and Mrs. Elsings had embraced her again, if only metaphorically. On Rhett jr's first birthday everyone who counted in Atlanta was present and not one scalawag, carpetbagger or white trash acquaintance crossed her threshold. Rhett had been so proud of her.  
  
Yes, everything in her life was just fine. After she gave birth to the next family member she would persuade Rhett to let her use the sponges so she could go on with her old life, for in spite of her apparent contentment, the old restlessness still rumbled beneath the surface. Apart from the company of the children she had no one she could talk to, except Rhett of course. But Rhett was so often away from the house. He worked at the bank and he met his male companions, among them honorable men like Uncle Henry and the indestructible Dr. Meade. Sometimes it seemed so unfair that she could not invite Mamie over or see any of the old friends who had always amused her so.  
  
She tried to make friends with Atlanta's women but their talk revolved incessantly around household tasks and children. She left the house to escape her own household and children, if only for an hour or two. It was maddening to find herself talking about the very things she wished to forget for a few moments at least. It seemed there was no escape from her dreary life as a housewife.  
  
The husbands of her new friends treated her with the utmost respect and of course never flirted with her. She remembered with fondness old Joe Bart who had flirted with her right in front of his wife who only laughed indulgently at his antics and obviously didn't mind at all. She tried joining Atlanta's Shakespeare Reading Circle, but just as she had remembered they only read dull books that didn't interest her in the least. Sometimes when frustration and utter boredom threatened to overwhelm her she wanted to drink brandy like in the old days when she was married to Frank. After a glass or two the world would look bright and promising again but the effect was never more than a temporary one. She made a promise to herself that she would find some way to escape her dull life as a housewife, some way other than through a bottle of brandy.  
  
When Rhett came home and heard the news he was openly pleased. That same evening, he escorted her to the Kimball House, Atlanta's newest hotel complete with grand ballrooms and an opera hall. They watched an Italian opera called "Lucia di Lammermoor" and though Scarlett was thrilled with her evening out and the opportunity to wear the diamonds Rhett had given her, she none-the-less fell soundly asleep during the performance. Rhett had laughed so heartily that he finally woke her up and, with the same cheerful grin she loved so much on baby Rhett, he said, "I don't have to ask you how you liked Donizetti. I will keep in mind that the Italian opera is obviously not your cup of tea. I would like to see your reaction to one of Wagner's pompous and melodramatic operas. You would probably fall into a catatonic state." He laughed at her again with a mischievous twinkle in his sloe eyes.  
  
She was very ashamed afterwards. How she would have liked to be a bit more intellectual, but like Rhett said this was not her cup of tea. It always bothered her when he so casually spoke of things she didn't know about and then laughed when he found out. Though she was sure he didn't mean it that way, he made her feel silly and woefully undereducated. Ellen had taught her how to catch a husband but not how to keep up the interest in his wife afterwards. Her mother hadn't thought farther than the spoken vows at the altar. The typical ignorance of a true Southern belle was apt for a sixteen year old but ridiculous in a grown up married woman like her. Who the hell was Wagner? From the sound of the name Scarlett assumed he was German and obviously composed operas. Ashley and Melly of course would know all about him. Well, such thoughts hardly mattered anyway, for opera in any language would be out of the question for several months to come.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
***  
  
Scarlett looked out of the window yearningly. Her pregnancy was quite advanced, so going out was not possible but the day was so bright and inviting, it seemed utterly unfair that she was not allowed to be outside. Of course, she could sit in the garden, but that would not ease her longing for company of people or the diversion of real activity. Like a tigress in a cage she walked up and down her room. Brandy had always soothed her when life seemed unbearable in the past and the thought of it was so tempting that it was almost a physical pain. But she had forbidden herself that comfort. She finally admitted to herself that Ella was indeed retarded in both body and mind. She was as small and ugly as a little ape and still couldn't talk coherently. Her presence in the house was sometimes insufferable for Scarlett because it reminded her both of her compulsive drinking during her pregnancy, the very likely the reason for Ella's problems, and of her immense physical repulsion for Ella's father that had been the cause for her drinking in the first place. However she would not make the same mistake twice. As long as she was pregnant she would refrain from alcohol even if it killed her.  
  
Scarlett would have liked to make up for her failure by showering Ella with deep-felt affection but as much as she tried to it was not possible. Every time she was with her daughter she wanted to scream with frustration for she felt only dislike for the poor little thing. This only became worse as Ella got older for her handicap was much more obvious now. It was horrid but her own daughter was disgusting to her. Yet Scarlett's bad conscience forced her to disguise her true feelings for the unfortunate child. She never yelled at Ella or reprimanded her. This was the least she could do to lessen her guilt. But sometimes she felt this and the dark atmosphere of the house was suffocating her. She wanted to go out and forget it all for a while.  
  
At least she had come to love her other children with all her heart. Even Wade had grown close to her, he was such a bright and affectionate boy. He looked more and more like his father every day but Scarlett didn't mind that at all. With some astonishment, she thought of how good-looking Charles must have been. Why had she never noticed that while he was still among the living? Though perhaps she had for she remembered she had kissed him quite wantonly under the mistletoe after a few too many glasses of Christmas punch. After that he had pursued her quite openly instead of courting Honey Wilkes. Of course he had been too much of a gentleman to ever mention her misconduct and she, very much embarrassed and ashamed of her own strange impulses, had conveniently forgotten that particular incident. How time did fly by.  
  
Suddenly she remembered Ashley and the fact that she hadn't thought about him for months. Obviously his constant presence in her mind had somehow stopped some time ago and she wondered about it. What was this supposed to mean? What was he doing right now? What had he done since the last time they had met? She tried to remember when and where that last meeting had been and simply couldn't. She tried to visualize his face and went still with shock for she was not able to. She tried to remember his voice and couldn't either. This was more than creepy. This was as ghastly as not being able to remember one's own name. Was she getting old? Ashley was part of her youth and if she forgot entirely about him her youth would be forever lost to her. He should be at the mills right now. She could go there and see if everything was all right.  
  
Her mills could be burnt to the ground and she wouldn't know. Rhett never told her how her business was running and answered evasively when she asked about it. The thought of seeing her sawmills again lifted her spirits at once. Oh God, but she was looking ever so pregnant, her belly was sticking out like a ship's bow. But she could take the closed carriage and anyway there was nobody to see her and take offence except the convicts and they didn't count. The consideration that Ashley would see her as well didn't bother her in the least.  
  
"He should know that I'm pregnant and how a pregnant woman looks. He's old enough", she thought defiantly, "and if he's such a stickler to propriety that he takes offence in a married woman expecting a baby, it's his problem and not mine. One would think I have conceived a child by fornication. Rhett told me once that being in the family way is something to be proud of! He was right but if he truly is convinced of that why doesn't he gladly show me off everywhere instead of keeping me shamefully hidden like a skeleton in the closet? Men, they are all hypocrites."  
  
Yes, she would go out and check on her mills. Pork could drive her. And she would stop on the way to see Mamie. It was her life and she would not let her every move be dictated by stupid, senseless rules. Not even Rhett had the right to order her around. He had saddled her with this pregnancy and yet he had all the freedom to move about in the world with his head held high. If there were any justice on earth he would share her unfair imprisonment by staying at home with her all day and night long.  
  
Her decision made, it was with high spirits that she gave the necessary orders to her servants. Mammy looked at her disapprovingly but refrained from a comment.  
  
When she finally sat in the carefully veiled carriage she sighed with relief. This forced inactivity was poison for her. She would speak to Rhett when he came home and remind him of some of the more unconventional views he held before they were married. There was no way she would let him sacrifice her on the altar of his children's lives. There were limits to everything.  
  
When she arrived at Mamie's house an odd sensation went through her. Not a sound from Mamie's brood greeted her through the open windows though every one of her children was buoyant and noisy all the time except when they slept. Where was their bubbling laughter? It was all so hideously quiet. Mamie's front porch that had always been a mess with Meggie's toys lying all over the place was a model of neatness and perfection now.  
  
"I have a bad feeling about this," Scarlett thought.  
  
She rang the bell and Josiah, the butler, opened the door and before Scarlett could ask for Mamie he said, "Miz Bart ain't at home, Miz Butler. She done move to New Orleans two months back an' took the children with her."  
  
"Is Mr. Bart at home?" Scarlett numbly replied.  
  
"Yes, ma'am I go and fetch him. Please come in and sit down." he said formally but a his eyes wandered down to her plump figure, Scarlett felt suddenly hot and uncomfortable. She knew there was nothing to be ashamed about but nevertheless she felt shamed and guilty as if she had committed a crime. Gingerly she sat down on the fashionable Regency chair for the weight of her belly made it hard for her to keep her balance. After a while she heard familiar steps. Joe came down to greet her, cheerful and lively as ever, not exactly looking like a deserted husband.  
  
"Scarlett, what a pleasant surprise! I would never have expected to see you here again, now that your husband is moving in higher circles." His eyes wandered down to her belly. "Oh, you are with child again. Another little Butler to keep up Southern values and family tradition?" Joe laughed aloud.  
  
Scarlett couldn't see any humor in his remark and simply gazed at him in stony-faced silence.  
  
Joe sobered and said with feigned regret, "I'm truly sorry. I didn't mean any offence. Yet I have to disappoint you in case you have come to see Mamie. She deserted me two months ago and went back to New Orleans. Never liked it here, you know. Atlanta was too cold, raw and joyless for her. And she always missed the joie de vivre and the broad mindedness of New Orleans' society." He laughed again but there was a derisive look in his eyes that she knew full well was aimed at her and Rhett.  
  
"How can you take it so light-heartedly that she left you?" Scarlett snapped in self-defense, and her thoughts were suddenly filled with the terrible consequence of Mamie's actions. Scarlett knew she would never see her friend again and couldn't believe that she hadn't even had a chance to tell her goodbye. The pain she felt at these thoughts caught her unaware. Not seeing Mamie while she was still in the city was one thing for there was always the possibility of meeting her again, but this was so dreadfully final. She would not see Mamie another time, would not hear her laugh or tell one of her raunchy stories or make one of her crude jokes ever again. Never before had she lost a close friend and hadn't known how much it could hurt. She hardly noticed Joe's answer to her impertinent question. He had only shrugged his shoulders and said that it wasn't meant to be. How could he be so casual? She obviously missed Mamie more than her own husband did. Swallowing hard she tried to regain her composure and said abruptly, "I'd better go now. Good-bye, Joe!"  
  
She left the house without looking back. This part of her life was history now. She tried to cheer herself up with the thought of seeing Ashley again, but the thought of him failed to bring her the pleasure it had in the past for she knew with certainty that if she could make a deal with God she would give up Ashley to get Mamie back. This must mean that she had fallen out of love with her childhood sweetheart, not all at once, but step by step, slowly, yet inevitably. She was grown-up now, the last trace of youthful ingenuity and foolishness was apparently far behind her. Another thing that was dreadfully final. Nevertheless she felt a strong urge to see Ashley and talk with him about her business. He would be reluctant to do so but she didn't care. At least she still had her business and she had to keep hold on that. If she lost it she would lose an essential part of herself.  
  
Everything that was connected with her trade and her sawmills was very important to her. The thrill and the challenge of it were physically palpable and made her feel alive and appreciated. It provided the only opportunity to use her intellect to full extent, something that was denied to her at home where she played her act as the complacent wife and mother much to Rhett's delight. She had not realized until now that Rhett had never taken her fully seriously. He made fun of her too often, in a mild manner of course, but like a father who tenderly teased his dearest, willful child. She could talk with him about everything but he did not return her confidence. She had no part in his financial dealings and it was crystal clear that she would never be a part of them. There were so many parts of him to which she was denied access, his sordid past that Mamie had alluded to included. Not that that wasn't to be expected, no Southern man ever took a woman really seriously or fully confided in her. Yet in her commercial dealings men had paid a high prize for not taking her seriously and she had taken secret delight in that.  
  
She thought of Mamie again and how they had talked about business. Mamie had always trusted her and treated her as an equal. Through Mamie, Scarlett was superficially informed of Rhett's nefarious business schemes, for he of course had not bothered to tell his wife about such matters. His lack of trust offended her but on the other hand no Southern gentleman she did know talked about his business with a woman. Deeply lost in thoughts she did not notice the distorted image of houses and familiar landscape which was visible through the heavy fabric of the veil that kept passersby from prying into the carriage. Finally she was there and Pork opened the carriage door for her. She shut her eyes, blinded by the sudden infusion of sunlight. After her eyes had adapted to the intense brightness she gingerly stepped out with the help of Pork.  
  
"You will wait for me here, I'm sure it won't take longer than two hours. Take a walk if you like," she said with determination, feeling like her old self again.  
  
But when she reached the sawmill she had the same sickening feeling she had had when she arrived at Mamie's house. It was eerily still. The usual noise of working men and machinery was not to be heard. With her heart hammering loudly in her ears she nearly ran towards the building. The mill appeared to be completely deserted.  
  
"Ashley" she called slightly out of breath. "Ashley?" she repeated, louder and more urgent.  
  
When she reached the sleeping quarters of the convicts she heard a sound that chilled her to the bone and rooted her to the ground. It was the groaning and tossing of men in delirium, a sound she had last heard when she nursed soldiers during wartime and which she had hoped never to hear again. Finally she saw the seemingly sleeping form of four convicts bathed in sweat, their eyes unnaturally wide and aglow with fever, the expression of their faces agonized. She stared numbly at them. A whispering sound startled her and she looked down at a fat brown rat crouching at her feet. It touched the hem of her gown and peeped up at her through small and cold eyes. She tried to scream but no sound broke from her lips. She kicked her foot at the tiny animal and it disappeared with a shriek.  
  
"Ashley" she whispered still not able to speak loudly.  
  
"Ma'am?" To her utmost surprise she saw Dr. Thompson the Yankee doctor Mamie had once recommended to her. He advanced her with long steps wearing a scarf that covered his face up to his insipid blue eyes. The young surgeon didn't look so splendid as the last time she had seen him at one of Mamie's gatherings. His face looked extremely pale and tired.  
  
"Mrs. Butler? For heavens sake did nobody tell you? You shouldn't have come! Go back Get out of here and do not touch anything!" Dr. Thompson rasped.  
  
"What has happened?" she inquired, fighting against the rising feeling of panic.  
  
"Your convicts have been infected with typhus. The outbreak started a few days ago and is spreading quickly. I had to send Mr. Wilkes home. He is not yet infected yet but only time will tell if he's spared. This disease is highly contagious, by all means you must go now! Burn your clothes when you are at home and stay away from your children. Let your husband fetch Dr. Meade. You'll have to wait for two weeks before you can be sure you haven't caught the illness!"  
  
Dazed with shock she walked back to her carriage like a sleepwalker. Pork was not waiting there and she remembered her permission that he could take a walk. She had no idea where he might have gone. All she could do was to wait. Time did drag at snail's pace, every minute of her forced stay was a torture. At last Pork came back from his stroll and they drove home in utter silence. Like the good, obedient servant that he was he refrained from asking her about what had caused the distress that he most certainly had seen in her face.  
  
When she finally reached the safe haven of her home she was able to think coherently again. She informed the servants of the situation and gave orders to burn all clothes she had worn that afternoon and Pork's as well. During that procedure, Scarlett wrote a letter to Aunt Pittypat and instructed Lou to go to her house with the children. The old lady would probably have an apoplectic fit but she couldn't help that now. Even the Wilkes' home was forbidden territory at the moment. When everything was done the house was horridly silent. She could only sit and wait for Rhett. Being a coward for once in her life, she had postponed the act of informing her husband to the very last moment.  
  
"Right now Pork must have been arrived at the bank" Scarlett thought numbly. She had made poor innocent Pork the bringer of bad tidings because she wasn't able to do it herself.  
  
After what seemed an eternity she heard the familiar steps of her husband in the entrance hall. In a matter of seconds he would be in their drawing room where she had retreated to await her fate. She felt as guilty as an adulteress in a stage play.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
But nothing could have prepared her for her Rhett's reaction when he entered the room. His face was chalk white, his eyes burning with an intensity of feeling that frightened her out of her wits. He crossed the space with long forceful steps until he reached her. For an immeasurable moment she thought he was going to hit her, something she felt she well deserved for her idiocy. But he sank down on the sofa beside her and extricated her hands to hold them in his. It was a hard task for she had pressed them together so strongly in her lap that the knuckles were white with tension.  
  
"Hell and damnation, what have you done you foolish woman! Why did you go there? I would have told you about the outbreak of typhus if I had known you would take such an idea into your head. But I wanted to keep that information to myself until after the birth. Dr. Meade advised me to keep every trouble and commotion from you and this is the result! I could throttle him, the fool! That man will never cross my threshold again. I'd rather have a Yankee doctor in my house!"  
  
Scarlett, who had expected a flood of accusations towards her, burst into tears, "I thought you would hate me because you suspected I was going there only because of Ashley. I just wanted the company of a friend, I was dying with boredom and I wanted to talk to a man, not to a woman. I know how this must look but I really wished very much to see him, but only as a friend. I wanted so badly to talk with someone about my business and see my sawmills. Oh, I hope you believe me!" she said tearfully.  
  
"Yes, I believe you, but that's not the least bit important now. All that matters now is your health. We'll fetch Dr. Anderson. He's as old as the hills of Jerusalem but since Dr. Meade is out of question and Dr. Thompson busy with the convicts he's the only option left."  
  
Scarlett looked at her husband incredulously, "It's not the least bit important to you? But whenever I mentioned Ashley in the past you hit the roof with your wrath!"  
  
"Sweet, I know you through and through. I have known for some time that you don't care for Ashley in a romantic sense anymore. Whenever we have met the Wilkes I watched your face and saw the disinterest in it. Well, you hardly listened when Ashley was talking. Your obvious boredom with his conversation was actually quite impolite but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Anyway if I still had doubts I would not have them any longer. The old Scarlett would have never gone to her adored childhood sweetheart with a belly like this,", he interrupted his speech by lovingly touching her bulging tummy and then carried on with a gentler voice, "I remember how you avoided the Wilkes when you were pregnant with Bonnie though you visited all your other friends back then."  
  
She was surprised and momentarily diverted from her plight, "Then you knew it much earlier than I did. How could I have been so blind all those years?"  
  
"I don't know, my pet. Sometimes we are blind to our own shortcomings and your only shortcoming was always Ashley. But don't let us talk about him any longer. As I said he's not important. I'll stay with you till the danger is over. You did the right thing in sending the children over to Aunt Pittypat. She won't handle the situation very well but there's not much to be done about that right now. I'll try my very best to keep you good company!"  
  
Rhett kept his word. He cared for her day and night and watched every single step she took these days, looking out covertly for any signs of typhus. Dr. Anderson had been visiting Scarlett and gave her a tonic to strengthen her. But as the seventh day after her visit to the sawmill arrived, she awoke with a terrible headache. She looked into the mirror with a sick feeling in her stomach. The rash on her face left no doubt she was infected.  
  
She remembered Dr. Anderson's words: "Typhus usually starts with fever, headache, or rash, or a combination of these. Look out for those signs."  
  
When she finally faced Rhett she saw his face turning ashen. "It means nothing, darling. You are very strong, you'll fight it. You must not give up!" he said with a thick voice.  
  
She knew he was encouraging her for what was awaiting them. The fever started on the afternoon of the very same day and got higher with each passing hour. Dr. Anderson was fetched again and he gave orders to cool her temperature down with cold cloths.  
  
"She must drink a lot as much as is possible for her to swallow," he advised.  
  
But the fever had already taken hold of her with a merciless, relentless grip shattering her teeth together until it hurt, making it impossible to swallow anything. She couldn't distinguish day and night or the people around her. Everything was in a haze, she was left utterly alone in an impermeable fog. Her mother came in accompanied by the familiar scent of lemon verbena and spoke to her in a soft soothing voice. Then Ellen suddenly disappeared and she saw Rhett sitting at her bedside, his eyes closed, mumbling something that sounded like a prayer. But that couldn't be, could it? He did not believe in God. Maybe she was already dead and in heaven. When she opened her eyes she saw a priest in his cassock, reciting Latin verses.  
  
She heard disjoined bits of conversation that made no sense: "The baby died peacefully." "The priest arrived in time.he baptized him." "Can be buried in consecrated ground." "Father O'Reilly..extreme unction for Mrs. Butler was necessary." "The next hours will decide if the mother will make it through."  
  
"What baby," she thought. "Was someone having a baby? The twins will tell me, they know all the interesting gossip." It was midsummer and the afternoon skies were blue and she lay drowsily in the thick clover of Tara's lawn, looking up at the billowing cloud castles, the fragrance of white blossoms in her nose and the pleasant busy humming of bees in her ears. A voice interrupted her dreaminess.  
  
"She doesn't recognize you, Captain Butler. She thinks she's still a girl in Clayton County."  
  
Captain Butler. The name was strangely familiar. The billowing cloud castles disappeared as quickly as they had formed and she saw a man bending over her with a face swarthy as a pirate and the aristocratic features of a Roman Imperator, imperious and proud. But the look in his eyes held no pride, they were that of a deeply frightened child, naked and infinitely pleading.  
  
She awoke in her bedroom. The chamber was in complete disarray with items of clothing lying all around. There was an unpleasant odor of sickness surrounding her. She wearily turned her head and saw half empty medicine bottles on her night table. Had she been sick? Her eyes scanned the room and her gaze fell upon a camp bed that she had overlooked until now. Her view focused on the man sleeping on it. It was Rhett but she barely recognized his face. He looked hollow-cheeked and hollow-eyed. There was the stubble of a growing beard on his face. That couldn't be her husband who always was so well-groomed.  
  
"Rhett" she whispered, her voice barely audible. Never in her life she had felt so weak. Faintly she recalled what had happened. She had had the typhus. In a familiar gesture she laid her hand on her belly searching for the baby's movement. Her tummy felt oddly flat. Slowly she realized what that must mean. She recalled the priest and the words that she had thought to be part of her dream.  
  
"Rhett!" she shrieked out panicky, "Rhett!"  
  
He awoke at once and walked over to her, relief written all over his face, "I have you back. The fever has left you. They had given all up on you but I knew you would make it."  
  
She paid no heed to his words for only one thought was on her mind, "Rhett, what happened to the baby?"  
  
The relief on her husbands face was replaced by sadness, "Sweet, you must be very strong now. You gave birth to a little baby boy. He lived only for a few hours but Father O'Reilly managed to baptize him before he died."  
  
"Oh, Rhett, what have I done!", she sobbed, "I killed my baby because of my own selfishness. I sacrificed our son on the altar of my blasted business! If I had stayed at home like a proper wife and a good mother this never would have happened!"  
  
"Shhh" he crooned with a soothing, fatherly voice, stroking her hair. "Don't torment yourself! You need your strength for other things. You must be brave for me and for our children. We all need you! I'll fetch you breakfast and then you must try to sleep. "  
  
"Rhett, can you ever forgive me?" Scarlett said brokenly, tears streaming down her face.  
  
"Darling, there's nothing to forgive. I know you didn't want that, don't blame yourself!"  
  
He hold her hand in his but as her sobs didn't subside he gathered her up in his arms and she felt frail and vulnerable as a child as she laid her head down at his chest, weakly as a newborn kitten. He gently stroked her back, murmuring soft words.  
  
"There, there.everything will be all right. The children are eagerly awaiting you and you won't believe it but Ella has drawn a very nice picture for you!" He kept telling her about the things that had happened in the meantime until she stopped crying and listened to the hypnotic call of his voice that put her finally to a peaceful sleep, not disturbed by unpleasant dreams.  
  
****  
  
Atlanta, three months later.  
  
Scarlett sat at her desk in her office at their Atlanta mansion. Her husband sat in front of her and watched her intently. Her hand with the pen still in it trembled. Numbly she viewed the sales contract she had just signed without really seeing it. The last bridge was burnt behind her, there was no way back now. Mamie's prediction hadn't come true for Rhett hadn't sold her mills, she alone had done it. It was her own decision.  
  
"Loving dependency or lonely independency, sweet confinement opposed to the dangers of complete freedom," Mamie's cynical words still rang in her ears. She made her choice and it was the only possible one. The alternatives were out of question, she had seen the disastrous outcome.  
  
Taking a deep breath she relaxed. She had not been able to see her sawmills. Some part of her wanted to go there and do business as usual but the other more potent one, the one consumed by guilt, kept her from going.  
  
Rhett had advised her to sell her sawmills to Ashley. It seemed that her old beau had come into some sort of inheritance from someone he had nursed through a case of smallpox in the Union prison at Rock Island. The mysterious donation letter had been unsigned and came from Washington. Scarlett suspected Rhett was behind it but didn't inquire further. Her husband alone knew what was right for her. He had always known what was right for her. Looking up at him with the papers still in her hand she said, "Please give it to Ashley this afternoon so he can sign the contract today. I don't want to postpone this!"  
  
Rhett took the papers out of her shaking hand and asked, "Are you sure? You don't want to think this over?"  
  
"No, I'm sure. You know, I never take back my word!"  
  
He smiled fondly at her and kissed her on the lips. "We'll go away for a while. Let's take the children for a trip someplace, New Orleans, perhaps. It will be a second honeymoon!"  
  
"Oh no, not New Orleans!" Scarlett said hastily. "Let's go to Saratoga. I haven't been there since before the war and I always loved it there."  
  
"Saratoga it is then. I'll tell Pansy to pack our things." After a short pause he added, "You'll never regret it. After a while you'll see that that business of yours was only one burden too many on your shoulders. You've had such a struggle, Scarlett. No one knows better than I what you have gone through and I want so badly for you to stop fighting and let me fight for you. I am so glad that you let me help you at last. I want you to play, like a child-for you are a child, a brave, frightened, bull-headed child. I love you so much. I have never been able to tell you that though I should have said it years ago."  
  
At his first words she felt the inappropriate urge to burst into a hysterical giggle. He wanted her to be irresponsible and playful like a child. As if she could turn back time so easily much as she might want to! How was she supposed to be carefree and youthful with four small children clinging to her skirts and a dead one on her conscience? What did he mean by such nonsense? Yet after he confessed his love for her the frantic laughter died in her throat. Something warm and soothing went through her, calming down her skittish nerves. Finally he had said it. He loved her. Everything would be all right, eventually.  
  
Saratoga, half a year later. Scarlett watched her children playing in the lovely but small garden behind their hotel that was conveniently located in the middle of the city. She stifled a yawn and reached for one of the delicious sandwiches sat on the small table beside her. She and her companion, Sally Armstrong were carefully shielded from the sun by a wide umbrella to keep their skin white and flawless.  
  
Scarlett watched her friend lazily. Sally was thirty-five but could easily be taken for fifty because of her worn-out and haggard appearance. Sally was worried all the time and right now she fussed about the coming-out party of her eldest daughter Susanna who had just turned seventeen last month. She chattered endlessly about Susanna's prospects for marriage or lack thereof and the dress her daughter would wear at her first ball. Beautiful but empty-headed, Susanna had obviously set her mind on a gaudy pink dress with an abundance of frivolous lace instead of the traditional virginal white gown which was expected at such occasions. Scarlett, who was not the least bit interested in Susanna's tantrums, felt the overwhelming urge to gag Sally. Yet of course she didn't.  
  
Sally Armstrong belonged to one of the most important families in Virginia. She was a blue-blooded as one could possible be. Her lineage was impeccable and so were her connections. Rhett did business with her husband Jonathan who had somehow managed to get back his family fortune after the war, probably by as unsavory, crooked means as Rhett. But no one mentioned such operations these days. Some things were better left unsaid.  
  
Unconsciously her hand came down to her belly and rested there. Some things had to be said, though. She would tell Rhett today. He would be overjoyed that her illness and miscarriage hadn't caused any damage to her. They could have other children, that was secure knowledge now. The prospect of being again doomed to a 7-month confinement hardly disturbed her this time. At least she would be rid of Sally and Jonathan for some time this way. They were probably the most boring couple in the world, and that in a world that was populated by so many lackluster people.  
  
Without her volition, her mind went back to a time when she had rebelled against the natural consequences of being a woman, mother and wife. She tried to avoid thinking about that time because it always made her sad and restless. Still, her memories proved as rebellious as her actions had been and they could not be held at bay. She had experienced freedom of a kind hardly any Southern lady ever had, earning her own money and succeeding as a businesswoman in the tough, competitive, male-dominated world of commerce, thus denying her instructed gender role. Not a born wife and mother, she had refused to take over the responsibility most women blindly accepted. But it hadn't made her happy. Never had she felt more lonely or hollow than in that strange world where the old rules had been suspended for a short while. Now she had returned into the sanctuary of family and tradition and it would eventually make her happy.  
  
She kept telling herself that every day like the repeated prayer of a rosary, hoping that one day the belief would follow. But deep inside her there was a feeling of loss and failure. Remembering Rhett's words about people who hadn't got the courage to live with the freedom of a bad reputation, she thought that she hadn't had that sort of courage either. Her rebellion and utopian-like liberty had only been a phase in her life, just like Rhett's hedonistic view on the world had merely been a defiant reaction to his ostracism by a society he had secretly admired all the time, being a true Southern gentleman and a traditionalist at heart. Why else had he left her on the road to Rough and Ready to fight so utterly uselessly in an already lost war which he only could protract, but not win? Such idiocy defied any logical explanation. Another name for such idiocy would be the sense of honor, a thoroughly misguided sense of honor, she thought unsentimentally. And why else would Rhett have always been so in awe of Melanie, a woman who embodied Southern values in their very essence?  
  
Now forced by inactivity to be still and think, she found that she had become quite introspective and analytical when looking back on the passage of her life. She realized that she had fallen in love with Rhett long ago but there was pain in the revelation. He had been so dashing, the unruly and free-spirited blockade runner. Indeed she had fallen deeply in love with the man who had freed her from her widow's weeds, who taught her to think for herself and to rebel against stupid rules that only restricted her true self. With a sense of bitter irony she comprehended that it was the same man who now forced her back into the moral corset of her youth, that he had made her despise once, declaring his old unconventional convictions as null and void. She had replaced Ashley in her heart and mind through another man cut of the same cloth. The only difference was that Rhett was fit for survival and Ashley was not. So she had married a modernized and more robust version of Ashley after all. The dearest wish of her early life had finally come true, and suddenly she remembered the old adage which she had never understood until now: "Beware of your wishes for they might come true one day."  
  
Epilogue, London 1894 Bonnie was so excited. She was in London, the center of the world and the city where the greatest number of plays ran simultaneously. All of her life she had adored the theater. What a magic moment it was, whenever the curtain was lifted and the electric bulbs were lighted. Her heart accelerated its pace and the blood rushed quicker through her veins. Nobody in her family shared her obsession. Her father was always amused at her eagerness and had smiled indulgently when after her 12th birthday she passionately declared she wanted to be an actress, an American Sarah Bernhardt. For Sarah Bernhardt was all the rage then. Of course Bonnie hadn't been allowed to see her plays, they were French and far too wicked. Sarah was strongly attacked in America for her amorality, she was seen as a whore of biblical proportions who acted in dissolute stage plays. But Bonnie had felt the commotion, charisma and celebrity around this woman. The newspapers had been full of Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. Without knowing or ever having seen the young actress Bonnie adored her unconditionally. She had cried , begged and pleaded with her parents to take her with them, but her father had forbidden it. She was far too young, he had said. Her mother had been silent.  
  
In1886 when Bonnie was nearly eighteen she had finally been able to see the famous, celebrated "Voix d'or". It was Sarah's second tour through America. The play Bonnie saw was one of those dreadful Russian nihilistic melodramas. Not quite to her liking but the magic pull of the divine Sarah had captured her at once. She truly was incomparable. It was then that Bonnie had made this promise to herself: One day she would become an actress, and she would pay any price for that. Most of her friends were already engaged by then. She knew her parents wanted her to take her time before she made her choice among Atlanta's most eligible bachelors but nevertheless they wanted her to settle down one day and live with her husband and children in the vicinity. But marriage and settling down was not Bonnie's dream. One day she would eventually marry but not now, and certainly not one of Atlanta's bachelors. Their conservative views on women and marriage made Bonnie yawn. If she ever married it would be an artist. A play-writer who would write stage plays especially for her. "For my beloved B.B.B" No, not to B.B.B. Bonnie Blue Butler sounded so dreadful homely. It had to be something more melodramatic, a name with music in it. The name of her mother, Scarlett O'Hara, yes that was a name! But most people didn't like the Irish, so this was out of question.  
  
Time had passed by so quickly and all she had achieved at twenty-five was taking part in a local theatre group which was financially supported by her father. Inevitably she was the ingénue, the young and innocent heroine in a string of stage plays in which not a touch of wickedness was allowed. Her refuge was Shakespeare and she played all the leading ladies, Juliet, Ophelia, Hero, Titania and Catherine, the role she liked best of all. All of her girl friends and even her younger sister Kate was married now and most of them had children. Her father constantly teased her about the fact that no man seemed to be good enough for her. Sometimes the laughter stuck in her throat. As if that was a girl's only option in life. Yet in her parents' world this clearly was the only solution. Only girls without family support had to work for their living. A woman's career was catching a husband.  
  
But now she was here in London, in the world of theatre. She knew her life was about to change. She could feel it in the air. When the curtain came down finally and the doors were opened she turned around to see her parents laughing and whispering in each other's ears. It was nice to see that they still loved each other. Yet Bonnie also knew of her mother's silent boredom and inexplicable frustration that would express itself in a quick change of temper and habitually unjust accusations which she threw at various family members, though never at her husband. Her mother was often hard to bear. When they stepped into the brightly lit foyer she heard her mother exclaim, "Oh my, can it be? God's nightgown, it's Mamie, Mamie Bart!"  
  
Her father stifled a moan and said, "Oh, not that dreadful woman. What a small world, too small by far! Let's pretend we haven't seen her!" But her mother obviously paid no heed to his words for she walked towards an elderly, starkly built and tall woman whose yellow hair Bonnie strongly suspected must be dyed. At her side was a much taller and very handsome man in his early thirties. She heard the two women laughing and exchanging a quick rush of words that escaped her notice for her eyes were fixed on the man's face.  
  
His features were not classical but captivating. The texture of his skin was darker than the current fashion and stood in stark contrast to his fair hair of which he had an abundance. As was the fashion among bohemians and aspiring aestheticians he was clean-shaven and his hair was longer than usual, almost reaching the collar of his shirt. His eyes were like liquid amber Bonnie foolishly thought, but his smile was the most winsome for he had wonderful teeth. Teeth were so important, people had either too many or too few. And his athletic build greatly appealed to her. She didn't like the effeminized look of many artists. And she was sure that the man was an artist. His whole appearance was just too flamboyant and conspicuous for an ordinary gentleman. Ah, now he took notice of her. His eyes sank into hers and his charming smile grew even more winsome. Bonnie felt the blood rush into her cheeks.  
  
"As our mothers seem to be too occupied to do the polite thing and properly introduce us, we'll have to do it ourselves, I assume. My name is Cecil Graham. How do you, Miss-" His voice was dark and rich just as Bonnie thought it would be.  
  
"Butler. Eugenia Victoria Butler, but my friends call me Bonnie." Hastily she added, "How do you do, Mr. Graham." Oh God, what a clumsy introduction she had made, offering this gentleman her nick name on their first meeting. What a social blunder. Miss Johnson of the Fayettesville girl's academy would be appalled but not very much surprised, Bonnie thought fatalistically.  
  
"I'm extremely pleased to meet you, Miss Butler."  
  
Suddenly her father, who had been watching them like a hawk, was at their side, "Mr. Graham, I suppose. When we last met you had just thrown Wade's birthday cake right into his face."  
  
Cecil laughed heartily. "Oh, yes, I remember that. I used to like Wade very much. On that day he declared that I could not be his friend any longer for my father was a drifter, my mother a tramp and I a bloody Yankee. I guess I was somewhat peeved. I would have forgiven him anything he said about me, but insulting my mother that was an altogether different thing. If I hadn't liked him that much back then I would have broken his nose for that. So that was not my worst day, you see." Bonnie could feel the tension between the two men but she didn't understand the source of it. Her mother obviously was very fond of Mrs. Graham.  
  
She looked at Mr. Graham and smiled with all her innate allure, "Mr. Graham you must introduce me to your charming mother! I suppose papa already knows her."  
  
Before her father could protest Cecil softly tapped his seemingly agitated mother on the shoulder, "Mama, I hate to interrupt this touching reunion but I wish to introduce you to a most charming lady." The yellow haired woman finally took notice of Bonnie whom she had ignored so far and Cecil continued, "Mamma, I presume you already know Mr. Butler but may I introduce you to Miss Eugenia Victoria Butler. Miss Butler, it's a pleasure to introduce you to my mother, Lady Cowper."  
  
Bonnie bowed a curtsey and smiled with feigned demure. Lady Cowper looked at her through a bejeweled lorgnette and laughed out quite unladylike.  
  
"Bonnie Blue Butler, what a surprise! The last time I saw you, you were a sweet child of but two years old. But I recognize that wonderful smile. Your mother's smile, surely you have been told that very often."  
  
"Not so very often, Lady Cowper. So you have known my mother for quite a long time?"  
  
"Either a very long or a very short time, depending on you point of view. But I'm very glad to see her again, something I was quite sure would never happen."  
  
Bonnie saw that Lady Cowper still ignored her father in a rather rude manner. Normally she would have taken her father's side, being loyal to a fault but this time she couldn't. It was obvious that their parents were for once not of the same opinion. Her mother glared warningly at her husband who looked like he was about to explode any minute. It was easy to see that he heartily disliked Lady Cowper, his icy, hostile stare at the tall, blond women left no other explanation open. But her mother's gaze on the unfortunate woman was warm-hearted and very friendly, and she treated the elderly lady like a long-lost friend. Bonnie would have liked to know the story that was behind all this.  
  
Her eyes returned to Cecil's as if an invisible magnet drew her to them. She saw him smiling at her in an almost intimate manner, as if they were alone in the world. Her heartbeat quickened and she felt slightly out of breath. Without thinking she said, "Mr. Graham, are you an artist?"  
  
He grinned boyishly, "What makes you think so?"  
  
Wishful thinking of course, she thought but she didn't say so, "You look like it!"  
  
"Ah, I'm so sorry to disappoint you, but my looks have misled you. Unfortunately I'm not an artist."  
  
Lady Cowper laughed again, "Oh, Cecil, you are such a swindler. You know he has just written a play that will have its premiere next month. 'Venetian night'. It's so romantic, and so tragic. It will be a huge success."  
  
Cecil shrugged his broad shoulders and said casually, "I doubt it very much. Romantic tragedies are not in fashion nowadays. Audiences nowadays prefer the wicked and cynical wit of an Oscar Wilde."  
  
Bonnie declared passionately, "Oh, I love romantic tragedies. What is it about?"  
  
"It's about a very unhappy and very proud married lady whose husband is unfaithful to her. She only stays with him because of her son. He makes a bet with one of his debauched friends that nobody can seduce his wife for she's far too honorable for that. A young arrogant man accepts the bet and tries to seduce the virtuous lady. The stake is not money but his own life for the husband who is an excellent marksman and has won every duel so far and will call him out if he does not succeed and prove it."  
  
"And is he successful?"  
  
"Yes, but the tragic thing is he falls in love with her."  
  
"But that's wonderful. Where's the tragedy?"  
  
"The tragedy is he can't prove that he has won the bet without exposing her. He will either loose her love or his life."  
  
"Oh, I see. What's his decision?"  
  
"What do you think?"  
  
Bonnie sighed, "Since it's a romantic tragedy, he will be shot by the unfaithful husband will he not?"  
  
Cecil smiled at her. Both became aware that the others were watching them with very mixed expressions on their faces. Lady Cowper was clearly amused, her mother seemed to be touched and her father looked like a brooding storm.  
  
With barely hidden fury he said scathingly, "Terribly romantic indeed. Can you make a living with such foolish nonsense?"  
  
Lady Cowper furiously retorted, "You don't know what you are talking about. Cecil does not have to work, none of my children have to. I have provided for each of them very well."  
  
"Yes and we all know by what means, don't we." her father cynically added.  
  
"You are the right person to tell me that, aren't you? I assume you have made all your money with charity projects?"  
  
Cecil bowed down to Bonnie's considerably smaller height and whispered teasingly in her ear: "That's quite a feud between those two! Makes it all the more romantic. If they start to attack each other physically we can escape through the stage entrance. I have the key to that."  
  
"Shouldn't you stay to protect your mother?"  
  
Cecil laughed out merrily, "Protect my mother? You should protect your father for he's in greater need of assistance. You don't know my mother. If someone attacks her little boy a tigress is a fair opponent in comparison."  
  
"I assume the 'little boy' is you?"  
  
"Oh, for our mothers we always stay little, they can never stop fretting."  
  
Bonnie thought of her mother's matter-of-factness that she had begun to like very much in her adolescence, and frowned. She could only remember her father fussing about her.  
  
"Oh, my mother has long since realized that I'm grown-up and treats me like an adult but for my father, I will be always his little princess. It is rather a burden for me."  
  
They both hardly listened to Rhett's and Mamie's heated quarrel.  
  
"..Lady Cowper is it! How many times have you been married now? Five times, six times? I dare say we've all lost count."  
  
"My expenditure in husbands is not your business. You should learn to mind your own."  
  
Scarlett interrupted them by putting a hand on Rhett's arm, "Oh, Rhett, please stop. I haven't seen her for over twenty years now, please don't ruin it for me!"  
  
Bonnie was flabbergasted and looked at her mother. Never had she seen Scarlett pleading with her husband in public. And with even greater astonishment she saw the guilty look on her father's face.  
  
"All right, I'll be quiet.", he forced his gaze back on Mamie, the look of acute dislike on his face was replaced by a polite mask. With an impartial voice he said, " We are staying at the Paddington Hotel at Talbot Square, Lady Cowper. My wife and I will be delighted to receive you there -" he hesitated slightly, "and your son, too of course. Would tomorrow morning be convenient for you?"  
  
Lady Cowper seemingly held herself in check. After a while a slow smile spread over her still handsome features. "We reside at Grosvenor Square 11 and receive on Mondays though Cecil has his own flat at Half moon street. Of course we'll come, won't we Cecil?"  
  
Cecil who had originally made some other spontaneous plans earlier decided that his meeting with an old friend could wait. L'affairs du Coeur were much more important. "Oh, yes tomorrow morning will be nice."  
  
They bid each other good-bye and when they headed towards the exit door Bonnie said to herself, "If I turn round and he is still watching me then he will fall in love with me!"  
  
Before they had reached the exit Bonnie surreptitiously turned her head to see if Cecil was still looking at her and there he stood, staring openly in her direction.  
  
"Mama" Bonnie said happily, "I never knew you associated with such fascinating people. We have to buy new dresses, our old ones won't do when we visit Lady Cowper."  
  
"And her most fascinating would-be artist son, we won't forget about him, won't we?" her father added bitingly.  
  
Scarlett shot a warning look in the direction of her husband and smiled at her daughter, "He's without doubt very handsome, there's a certain something about fair-haired poets, is there not? I remember vaguely when I was young I rather preferred that type of man though I must say there's something untamed about Mr. Graham that is rather dashing. Reminds me of another type of man I was smitten with when I was a bit older and wiser."  
  
Bonnie heard her father chuckling and her mother giggling like mad and her chin rose with hurt pride. Parents could be so foolish and embarrassing sometimes. She only hoped they would behave a bit more dignified when Lady Cowper and her son came to make their morning visit.  
  
THE END 


End file.
